Back Lane Studios

This exhibit, which opened on Dec. 7 and was closed for an art exhibit, will re-open in January. 

Lucy Maud Montgomery spent a lot of time in Toronto, especially during the last seven years of her life when she lived at 210 Riverside Dr. in Swansea. Her ghost is everywhere in this city, with the evidence recorded in her copious diaries. It’s surprising how much she accomplished in the last seven years of her life, despite depression, worries about her sons, money concerns and her husband Ewan’s mental illness. We’ve collected some archival photos and combined them with quotes from her journals.

We’ve also explored some themes that run through her novels and her diaries. One great irony stands out; Her fictional creations represent wish fulfilment, a fantasy of what she would have wanted things to be; her life, on the other hand, was in stark contrast to the world she dreamed of.

Many of the photos in the exhibit were taken by Maud herself. She was accomplished and knowledgeable in so many fields.

Mark Sunday, Jan. 26, 12:30 pm on your calendar for our next Extraordinary Woman event at the Revue Cinema. We’re exploring the life and legacy of ballerina Maria Tallchief. From a Native American community in Oklahoma, Maria Tallchief (1925-2013) became America’s first prima ballerina. As a girl in Los Angeles, she was able to train with Bronislava Nijinska, the sister of Vaslav Nijinsky. She was mentored by George Balanchine and later married him.  Her partnership with Balanchine helped create the New York City Ballet and changed the course of ballet in America. Rare archival clips and stills from the 1940s through her retirement in the mid 1960′s trace this important period of ballet and American Indigenous history. The 2007 documentary was directed by Sandra Osawa. Buy tickets here on the Revue Cinema website.

Welcome to OldTO. It’s an interactive map featuring a wealth of digitized historic photos from the City of Toronto Archives.

Are you interested in what your neighbourhood might have looked like? Do you want to revisit downtown before all of the condos went up? Have a look at the map and see. There are thousands of images, some dating back to 1856.

The map was originally created by Sidewalk Labs, the Google affiliate that was planning a downtown development in Toronto’s Portlands. Sidewalk abandoned its project in 2020 and eventually stopped hosting OldTO.org. However, they kindly left the source code freely available.

At Back Lane Studios, we were sad to see OldTO.org vanish. One of our main projects is our Mapping our Memories endeavour. This photo map parallels this interest, and we are thrilled to be able to restore it.

We will be forever grateful to software developer Michael Lenaghan for his terrific work bringing this mapping tool back to life! (Check the browser you use to access oldto.org. Try Chrome if you’re having problems.)

Read the article about OldTO in BlogTO!

Join us for our second Back Lane Film Club screening of 2025 on Feb. 2 at 2:00 pm. The film: Viridiana, a Spanish-Mexican 1961 production directed by Luis Buñuel, known for his surrealistic movies, well-laced with political satire. You can see from the photo why this film would have generated a lot of controversy on its release. The Holy See labeled it blasphemous, and it was banned in Spain until 1977, after Franco’s death. The film won a Palme d’Or at Cannes, and in a 2016 poll of film experts, it was voted the best Spanish film of all time.

The club aims to screen films that have been overlooked or forgotten, and deserve to be seen again. At each screening, the film is introduced and a discussion follows. We have snacks, thanks to Kirsten Gunter who has been running the club.

Become a club member, pay $25 for the year, and all of the screenings are free. Non-members pay $5 if there is room. Screenings are on the first Sunday of the month, but canceled for July and August. Interested in joining? Email us at info@backlanestudios.ca.

When: Sunday Feb. 2, arrive between 1:30 and 1:45 pm – film starts at 2 pm.  Where: Back Lane Studios, 9 Neepawa Ave., Toronto – laneway door.

Thanks to everyone who attended our session at the Revue Cinema about Patricia Highsmith, who created the chilling sociopaths in The Talented Mr. Ripley and Strangers on the Train. Thanks to author and former prof Janice Kulyk Keefer for bringing much needed perspective to the movie. The film, Loving Highsmith, with its interviews of Highsmith’s former lovers looked at her life through those relationships. But there was much, much more to this woman, who was, indeed, a study in contradictions.

Read more about our past Extraordinary Women series under that section the Extraordinary Women section of this website.

Our instructor Diana Nazareth was back in town early in December, and was able to join us at the studio Sunday, Dec. 8 for an intermediate level smartphone photography class. We thank Diana, who has moved out of the country, to take time during her visit for the course. She expects to be back in town during 2025 and we will keep you posted about possible future programs.