A total of $1.6 million is now available to help Ontario artists and arts organizations to respond to challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic.

While most Ontario businesses and organizations have now reopened to the public, the arts and culture sector is continuing to struggle with the impacts of the pandemic. For example, individual artists continue to have limited opportunities to display their work to the public, and many performance venues remain closed as public health requirements affect the financial viability of reopening.

Last Tuesday (August 11), the Ontario Arts Council launched the new Arts Response Initiative. The one-time initiative will support activities and expenses focused on research, training, and planning for ways to adapt artistic practices and activities during the pandemic.

A $4,000 grant is available for individual artists, with up to $15,000 for arts collectives and professional arts organizations, and up to $30,000 for organizational partnerships. The grants must be used for projects that respond to the challenges resulting from COVID-19.

Eligible activities include research and planning, documenting artistic work (for example, by photographing visual arts pieces), upgrading technology, website development, marketing artistic work to presenters and to audiences, creating and adapting work spaces, and developing knowledge and skills in administration, technology, and digital platforms and artistic practice.

For arts collectives, professional arts organizations, and organizational partnerships, eligible activities also include services to Ontario artists and arts organizations.

The deadline for applications for individual artists is 1 p.m. on Tuesday, October 20th. For arts collectives, professional arts organizations, and organizational partnerships, the application deadline is 1 p.m. on Tuesday, November 3rd.

Successful grant applicants will be notified within four months of the application deadline.

Priority will be given to applications from artists of colour, deaf artists and artists with disabilities, francophone artists, indigenous artists, new generation artists (18-30 year olds), and artists living in regions outside of Toronto.

For more information including how to apply, visit www.arts.on.ca/grants/activity/arts-response-initiative.

Millbrook’s renowned outdoor theatre company 4th Line Theatre, which had to postpone its summer season for the first time ever due to the COVID-19 pandemic, recently announced their return to live theatre this fall with the Halloween-themed production Bedtime Stories and Other Horrifying Tales.

As a theatre nerd, it has been impossible for me to experience this pandemic without thinking of William Shakespeare. This is due, in part, to that pesky meme in circulation that scorns my incompetence with the incessant reminder that: “When Shakespeare was in quarantine because of the plague, he wrote King Lear.” No pressure, right?

It’s also because, since March, my macabre morning ritual is to check the Johns Hopkins global data on COVID-19; those digital death knells often make me wonder what it must’ve been like for Shakespeare, living across from a church on Silver Street, as the tolling of the bells marked each plague death. How on earth did he get any writing done?

I had the opportunity to speak with two powerhouse women who managed to pull a Shakespeare insofar as they co-wrote a play during a pandemic.

4th Line Theatre’s general manager, Lindy Finlan, and managing artistic director, Kim Blackwell, who will also direct the show, told me what it was like to write the script for Bedtime Stories and Other Horrifying Tales during a global health crisis. The outdoor production runs at Winslow Farm in Millbrook for 10 performances from October 20th to 30th.

As early as last November, the pair knew they’d be co-writing the script inspired by the things that scare children in the night — the stuff of nightmares. So many of 4th Line’s productions start with reminiscences: community workshops that seek to gather first-hand accounts from people with knowledge on certain topics.

In the case of Bedtime Stories, the experts were grade five and six students from Millbrook Public School, who Kim and Lindy consulted during pre-pandemic times.

“We were so lucky that we had this great afternoon with these really open young people who shared their stories about the things that scare them and what the dark is like for them,” Kim Blackwell says. “It was one of the final creative things we did before the world shut down.”

“The shutdown and the craziness of March was so nuts and emotional, not only on a personal level for everybody, but also for the theatre,” adds Lindy Finlan.

Admittedly, perhaps due to my own pandemic-inflicted misery, I expected to hear Lindy and Kim share stories of the unexpected nightmares that surely came with juggling the challenging administrative duties of running a theatre company in a pandemic, pivoting instantly to offer innovative programming such as 4th Line @ Home, while also trying to create an original script. Much to my surprise, both women spoke of the process fondly.

“Our admin work required so much questioning,” says Lindy. “Could we put on our season? How would we do it? What would it look like? Would it be safe? Writing allowed us to ask very different questions of ourselves. What does this character look like? Where do we go with this? It was refreshing but also necessary to give ourselves permission to just play and escape into this imaginary world that we were creating. It was one of the bright lights of that time.”

“This writing, for me, was a real saviour in early March and April,” Kim recalls. “In a way, the great pause from March 19th onward allowed for me to have the time to write this. There were days and weeks when there was just nothing to do and nowhere to go. We had to stay inside. So that abyss of time was great; it allowed me to just sit and write.”

Though the act of writing provided much solace for the creative duo, it was the act of collaboration — a gesture of friendship — that the two so fondly spoke of. They are indeed a complementary pair.

Lindy, a seasoned playwright who has created numerous works including The Fool of Cavan: A Christmas Caper (2019) and Ruse of the Romantic (2015), admits to her reticence when it comes to collaborative work.

“I was actually, to be honest, surprised with how much I enjoyed the experience of collaborating,” she observes. “With Kim, I felt safe to do it. It was so exciting to open the Google Doc up and see that Kim had written another scene. She was so fast! She got us started. Because of everything that was going on in the world, I don’t think that I would’ve been so inspired to begin. Getting started is always the hardest part of writing, but Kim had done it.”

Despite the fact that Kim has over 25 years’ experience with 4th Line and elsewhere, fulfilling an array of roles in the theatre industry including administration, management, marketing, publicity, and, of course, her longstanding creative work as a director, Bedtime Stories is her debut script as a writer.

“I’m a very seasoned artistic leader, I’m a seasoned director, but I’m a baby playwright and I admit that freely,” says Kim. “I could not have asked for a better writing partner. Lindy is a very experienced writer. Her writing is very sophisticated and it elevates my writing. Working with Lindy on this play has given me a lot of confidence — a voice that I didn’t know I had.”

Kim has certainly found her voice and has since completed a second full script, with a third on the way.

That collaborative experience and, indeed, the context of the writing process during the pandemic inspired much of the script.

“The pandemic and the whole experience, of course, inevitably influenced our writing in the sense that we have included some elements of past pandemics, but also the fears,” Lindy says. “We were afraid — we were writing something to scare people and that’s certainly a factor. Though the script includes many tropes that everybody finds scary, it also explores hate because that’s one of the scariest things there is.”

“The piece explores so many of the things we’re experiencing as a society now,” Kim adds. “It investigates the seeds of bigotry, of xenophobia, the seeds of fear. It tries to understand how it is that we come to fear the other. But we also took real stories, from real Millbrook kids, and we’ve created a grandiose, almost operatic sort of take on their stories to scare adults with them.”

Just how scary is Bedtime Stories and Other Horrifying Tales? When I asked the writers to rate the show’s scariness on a scale of one to never-sleep-again, the two committed to a solid eight. With that in mind, it’s worth noting that parental discretion is advised — 4th Line has given the show a PG rating.

“There are frightening scenes,” says Lindy. “It’s for mature audiences. So if there’s a kid who likes horror movies, they’ll be fine. It’s going to be completely different than anything that we’ve ever done before, especially at the farm.”

“We’re doing our darnedest to scare the crap out of people,” Kim adds. “By October, everybody’s going to need the catharsis of being scared to death, outside, in the dark.”

How true!

While the show promises some much-needed catharsis in the form of a good scare, audiences need not fear the omnipresent threat of COVID-19. Situated on 100 acres, the Winslow Farm offers ample space for distanced audiences to spread out and enjoy the promenading performance of a boy’s journey into the dark.

4th Line, an industry leader when it comes to safety, has written their own re-opening strategy, which includes enhanced safety measures such as encouraging regular staff testing, distanced staging, and inter-company bubbling to allow for actors to safely perform more intimate scenes. They’ve gone above and beyond the provincial guidelines when it comes to ensuring the safety of staff and audiences alike.

For many reasons, the two writers are so excited to mount this production but nothing excites them more than the prospect of sharing their work with a live audience.

“A show comes to life, in a way, with the actors and, of course, the director making it happen, but it doesn’t really come to life until there’s an audience to see it and experience it,” Lindy says.

“There is a relationship between art and audience in our medium of live performance, specifically theatre,” Kim explains. “Being there together and hearing your audience being alive and reacting — that’s our jam. We don’t do it for any other reason.”

This is where you come in, dear readers. A performance comes into being in the presence of its audience; it is experienced in a state of becoming. Theatre is one of the most collaborative art forms there is, which necessarily includes a reciprocal exchange — a collaboration — between artists and audiences.

I am so pleased, after five long months, to implore each of you to partake in the ecstatic fellowship of the theatre. The return of live audiences is an historical moment, not only for 4th Line, but also for the theatre industry writ large. This is a win for all of us.

As my old pal Shakespeare once wrote: “The miserable have no other medicine. But only hope.” The return of live theatre is precisely the hope I’ve needed after five months of misery. Just as they did after the plagues in Shakespeare’s times, I know that audiences will return to our beloved theatres. The theatre has survived many pandemics.

My compelling conversation with Lindy Finlan and Kim Blackwell reveals exactly what that pesky Shakespeare meme leaves out. According to scholar James Shapiro, Shakespeare was so productive during quarantine because “his days were free, for the first time since the early 1590s, to collaborate with other playwrights.” (The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606, 2016).

And there you have it, the myth of the lone genius is just that: a myth. Collaboration is key. My takeaway? Perhaps some other British bards will better express it: “I get by with a little help from my friends.”

There will be 10 performances of Bedtime Stories and Other Horrifying Tales running from Tuesday, October 20th to Friday, October 30th. Tickets are $25 each, and are limited for each performance.

Tickets and gift certificates for 4th Line Theatre productions can be purchased by phone at 705-932-4445 (toll free at 1-800-814-0055), online at 4thlinetheatre.on.ca, or at 4th Line Theatre’s box office at 4 Tupper Street in Millbrook.

With art galleries closed for much of the COVID-19 pandemic, artists have been unable to show their work for months and art lovers have been equally deprived of indulging their passion.

So it’s great news that the Apsley Autumn Studio Tour is going ahead for 2020 — but with the proper pandemic precautions in place, including requiring physical distancing and face coverings.

This is the 27th year of the renowned annual tour, which takes place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, September 19th and Sunday, September 20th.

The free self-guided tour features 27 artists in 13 studios across North Kawartha Township in Peterborough County, with an additional studio located in nearby Wollaston Township in Hastings County.

Every year, new artists apply for Apsley Autumn Studio Tour and are admitted through a juried process. Many live in the area, while others are guest artists.

This year’s participants again cover the gamut of the visual arts, including painting, jewellery, glass art, mosaics, woodworking, sculpture, fabric and fibre art, pottery, photography, and metalwork. As well as seeing their work, the tour provides you with the opportunity to meet welcoming artists in person.

All you need to participate is a vehicle and the tour map (see below). You can make a day trip (there are local eateries in the area where you can stop for refreshments) or make a weekend of it by staying at local accommodations such as the Burleigh Falls Inn or Viamede Resort.

For your convenience, here’s a summary in alphabetical order of the artists and artisans participating in the 2020 Apsley Autumn Studio Tour, including their disciplines and the studios where you can find them (watch for the black-and-white studio tour signs that mark each studio location, which are listed on the map below).

Brendan Cane (Photography, Studio B)

Brendan has many hobbies, but has the most to show for — and is most passionate about — the art of landscape photography.

Read more about Brendan Cane.

Rachel Charlebois (Metal Sculpture, Studio R)

Rachel returns to the Apsley Studio Tour, where she loves to meet new people and see familiar faces as she shares her love of metalwork with visitors.

Read more about Rachel Charlebois.

Megan Cole (Sculpture, Studio A)

An emerging artist, Megan has participated in various group shows in Peterborough, and has had several pieces auctioned off by the Art Gallery of Peterborough, as well as having a painting in their inaugural triennial exhibition.

Read more about Megan Cole.

Rachel Conlin (Artisan Wool & Soap, Studio O)

Rachel has introduced her artisan soaps to compliment the unique wools she’s been recognized for. She began experimenting with herbs from the garden and wild plants from her farm and woodland, blending them into the wholesome soaps. Rachel says creating artisan soaps along with novel wools is not only a manifestation of nature and colour, but also celebrates the charm of farm life.

Read more about Rachel Conlin.

Brad Copping (Glass Art, Studio F)

Working from his home on the edge of the Canadian Shield, Brad maintains a successful practice as both a sculptor and a functional glass blower, often traversing the line between.

Read more about Brad Copping.

Jacques Deslauriers (Woodworking, Studio L)

Jacques is a self-taught woodworker who uses only wood from dead or fallen trees. Gnarls, insect holes, and spalted wood are his materials of choice. He is always ready for a creative challenge of any size.

Read more about Jacques Deslauriers.

David Grieve (Painting, Studio G)

First introduced to oil painting as a child, David has been painting ever since and has developed a unique distinctive style. He uses a multi-layered technique, applying thick swaths of oil paint to create images inspired by the Ontario landscape.

Read more about David Grieve.

Anja Hertle (Mosaics, Studio J)

Anja works with broken china, pottery, porcelain figurines, and tile to give these elements a second life in her whimsical mosaic art pieces. She also incorporates forks, beads, buttons, bottle caps, and typewriter keys.

Read more about Anja Hertle.

Susan Higgins (Glass Art, Studio M)

Expressive colour and evocative themes of nature are Susan’s hallmarks. She layers crushed and sheet glasses, sometimes with metal inclusions, and then kiln fires them. Susan strives to create engaging imagery in plates, bowls, and freestanding glass art.

Read more about Susan Higgins.

Dolores Hopps (Fabric Art, Studio H)

Dolores’ work includes quilts, using imported fabrics from England and Japan, as well as wall hangings, runners, and smaller items. Many of her pieces have wool felting incorporated into the quilting, as well as beads, silk, and quite a number of other interesting embellishments.

Read more about Dolores Hopps.

Melanie Edson Horner (Pottery, Studio J)

A member of Kawartha Potters Guild and Spirit of the Hills Art Association, Melanie enjoys creating personalised pottery, particularly clocks. She enjoys making one-off pieces and is currently experimenting with raku and smoke fire techniques.

Read more about Melanie Edson Horner.

Vivienne Jones (Jewellery, Studio F)

Vivienne is a contemporary artist based in Toronto whose work is very much influenced by natural forms. She creates highly distinctive jewellery using both traditional and non-traditional materials.

Read more about Vivienne Jones.

Carolyn Jongeward (Painting and Woven Tapestry, Studio A)

Carolyn’s artwork includes hand-woven tapestry, acrylic painting, block printing, fabric painting, and painting on birch bark. As a tapestry artist, Carolyn has exhibited in Canada, United States, and England. Her paintings reflect her understanding of textile structures, her eye for colour, and her ongoing interest in geometry and pattern in art and nature.

Read more about Carolyn Jongeward.

Lisa Mace (Painting, Studio C)

Living in rural Apsley, Lisa paints the world around her. Jack pines, full maples, wild flowers, and rural homes, Lisa paints what is found outside her front door.

Read more about Lisa Mace.

Molly Moldovan (Visual Arts, Studio M)

The starting point for all of Molly’s work is the pristine landscape that surrounds her: the lake, forest, and uninterrupted skyscape are the foundation of every piece she paints. A visual artist whose primary focus is abstraction, she works primarily in acrylic and mixed media.

Read more about Molly Moldovan.

Britt Olauson (Woodworking, Studio C)

Britt designs functional furniture and other objects in wood, and her designs are often playful or interactive.

Read more about Britt Olauson.

Tom Parsons (Woodworking, Studio B)

Tom’s work exemplifies both rustic and contemporary styles, and is greatly influenced by the natural forms of wood.

Read more about Tom Parsons.

Cathy Pennaertz (Pottery, Studio K)

Applying multiple patterns in a range of colours on clay, Cathy creates one-of-a-kind functional pieces of art or a whimsical collectible. New animal-themed mugs, piggy banks, and horse figurines add to the collection among a continuation of animated forms of snowmen, gnomes, Santas, and assorted critters.

Read more about Cathy Pennaertz.

Susan Rankin (Glass Art, Studio F)

In her 30-year career as a glass artist, Susan has drawn inspiration from the landscape in which she lives. An avid gardener, she continues to explore the idea of garden through her vessel and sculptural works and is well known for her vibrant floral vessels.

Read more about Susan Rankin.

Kathy Robichaud (Stained glass, Studio H)

Kathy has been a stained glass artist for over 25 years, using traditional techniques to produce stained glass art. Concentrating on the copper foil method, Kathy looks to nature for inspiration.

Read more about Kathy Robichaud.

Arne Roosman (Painting, Studio S)

Arne revisits his sketch book and paints his canvas with his travels to Sweden, Italy, and Estonia, and life’s inspirations in tow.

Read more about Arne Roosman.

Catharine Scott (Jewellery, Studio H)

Catharine is a self-taught artisan who is inspired by the natural beauty of coloured gem stones, the ability to form and create meaningful pieces of art through wire working, and her own creative style of stringing that can be worn at any time of the day with any style of fashion.

Read more about Catharine Scott.

Clare Scott-Taggart (Metal Sculpture, Studio F)

Clare owns Rusty Girl metalwork studio in Toronto, where she designs and makes railings, furniture, arbours, limited-run production pieces for the garden, and sculpture.

Read more about Clare Scott-Taggart.

David Smith (Painting, Studio F)

David is inspired to create new works in watercolour, acrylic, and oil by the surrounding landscape. Painting full time following a career in advertising, graphic design, and colour retouching, he applies this knowledge and skill into his paintings.

Read more about David Smith.

Judy Sparkes (Pottery, Studio H)

Obsessed with the relationship between great food and handmade pottery, Judy believes eating from handmade pots elevates the dining experience. Her work is carefully hand crafted to be enjoyed as everyday art.

Read more about Judy Sparkes.

Frances Timbers (Jewellery, Studio A)

From the delicate to the dramatic, Frances’ jewellery designs are timeless treasures, which will serve as wearable art for years to come.

Read more about Frances Timbers.

Kimberly Tucker (Fibre Art, Studio A)

Kim is inspired by nature’s resilience and her work is a celebration of an imagination let loose.

Read more about Kimberly Tucker.

2020 Apsley Autumn Studio Tour Map

You can download a download a printable brochure that includes the map.

First launched in 1994, the Apsley Studio Tour not only creates public awareness of the arts by promoting and supporting artists in the community, but it supports young artists as well. The tour sponsors the Arts Award at Apsley Central Public School (last year’s recipient was Mason Harris).

For more information on the 2020 Apsley Autumn Studio Tour, visit apsleystudiotour.com. You can also follow the Apsley Autumn Studio Tour on Facebook and Instagram.

This story was created in partnership with the Apsley Autumn Studio Tour.