Our Main Project: Collecting Seniors' Stories
Extraordinary Woman Series: Betty Davis — The Queen of Funk
Next Extraordinary Women: Sunday, June 7, 12:00 pm: Introducing Betty Davis, the Queen of Funk.
At 17, Betty left Pennsylvania for New York to attend the Fashion Institute of Technology. She had been writing songs since she was 12 and immersed herself in the Greenich Village music scene. She caught the eye of trumpeter Miles Davis; she was impressed by his shoes. They married for a tumultuous year. On stage, she was raw, too sexual for the times. She was dropped by her record label, boycotted by radio stations. She disappeared for decades.
Director Phil Cox sought her out and finally persuaded her to take part in a documentary. His film Betty Davis: They Say I’m Different is impressionistic, crafted from rare archival footage, interviews with her friends, and imagery drawn from Betty’s writings. He joins us by Zoom from London to introduce his film and talk about the challenges he faced making it.
Our favourite music expert and Grammy-award winner Rob Bowman returns for another of our Extraordinary Women events to share his knowledge in our Q&A. Buy tickets here. Watch the trailer here. Read more about the event here.
Artist’s Talk on Exhibit’s Last Day, Sunday, May 31, 3:15pm
Raffi Anderian’s exhibit in our studio will be open this weekend, Saturday and Sunday, May 30-31, noon to 4:00pm. Raffi will join us at 3:15 pm on the exhibit’s last day to give an artist’s talk. He will be glad to answer any questions about the techniques he’s using now, the subjects he’s been exploring and his experiences at the Star.
For 27 years, Raffi produced award-winning illustrations at the Toronto Star. Since retiring in 2016, he has embraced teaching and has been experimenting with different styles and subjects for his own painting.
He has shared some of his recent portraits and landscapes, along with brief explanations about the techniques he is working with. The exhibit also has included caricatures and illustrations that appeared over the years in The Star, among them selections from his popular “Raffi’s Toronto” series of paintings.
The falling figure in the poster is from a group of large images Raffi completed after his retirement, a reflection of the free-fall of uncertainty you experience when you no longer have job security in a changing world.
Toronto’s stained glass treasures
Stained glass restorer Henry Knight gave an illustrated talk on the stained glass jewels in many of Toronto’s older homes.
Older Toronto homes are filled with stained glass windows featuring birds, flowers, vines and intricate patterns. Who designed and made these leaded panes? Henry Knight, a stained glass artist and restorer, has made it his urgent mission to find out. This city’s housing stock in historic neighbourhoods is being demolished, and antique features like the windows are being lost.
We thank Henry for his April 15 talk in which he revealed he likened to archeological research. The process took him three decades. First, he had to collect images of 19th century glass in homes, categorize according to style, date them and then conduct extensive research using Toronto’s City Directories. He was able to identify the men who made the windows. We hope to record Henry’s presentation on Zoom so that we can share it. His talk was fascinating.
This presentation has been organized by the Sunnyside Historical Society. Space is limited. Please reserve your place for free on Eventbrite. Click here. We welcome donations at the studio. If you sign up and then can’t attend, please cancel your reservation on Eventbrite or email us at info@backlanestudios.ca.
Back Lane Studios is located at 9 Neepawa Ave. in the heart of Roncesvalles Village, a block south of Howard Park Ave. and just east off Roncesvalles.
Learn some video skills! New program starts June 3, 10:00am-noon
Why not try something new, and at the same time help us collect stories for our Mapping our Memories project? We will be scheduling a free six-session hands-on video-making course starting on Wednesday, June 3 from 10am to noon. You’ll be using devices you most likely have already — a smartphone to record video and a laptop (or desktop) for editing using free simple editing programs.
We are continuing the Monday and Wednesday afternoon drop-in video-making sessions from 1:00-3:00pm for folks to continue working on their videos or to start some new ones. We would love to include the videos in our Mapping our Memories project if you agree.
Videographer Cheryl Rondeau is our instructor. Cheryl has made many short videos, most recently about Inuit art and artists. Also helping us to refine our videos is Boyd Bonitzke, a video and sound editor.
The image above is of Fred James and his wife Margaret, who owned James Gardens, now a city park. Margaret James was Doris Dunne’s great aunt. Doris’s daughter Maureen Chicorli put together a documentary about the Etobicoke landmark featuring her mom’s memories. Watch it here. Sadly, Doris passed away in late 2025. We are so grateful to have her stories on video.
Interested? Email us at ellen@backlanestudios.ca or call 647-313-1654. The programs are free. Donations are welcome!
Resources for Researching Toronto History
Wayne Reeves, recently retired from his post of Chief Curator for Toronto, has shared his knowledge on research tools that are useful for anyone researching Toronto’s history.
Artist Studio tour — June 6-7
| Once again, four artists will showcase their work at our studio at 9 Neepawa Ave. Saturday and Sunday, June 6-7, from 11:00am to 5:00pm. As part of the West Toronto Artists’ Studio Tour, Nadine Dennis, Bernie Hunt, Surabhi Pandey and Christine Jermyn will display their paintings, which focus on beauty in nature and the little things around us. (The painting shown is Nadine’s.) Save the date! |
Back Lane Film Club 2026: Orlando
The Back Lane Film Club last selection before a two-month summer break is Orlando, a film interpretation of Virginia Woolf’s novel about a gender shifting poet who lives for centuries. The screening takes place on Sunday, June 14. (The date has been changed from the usual first Sunday of the month to accommodate the West Toronto Artists Studio Art Tour.)
Film club members receive a private link to reserve a spot. Spaces open up after Wednesday, June 10 on a first come-first served basis. Email us at info@backlanestudios.ca if you’re interested in attending. Screenings are usually the first Sunday of each month, with the exception of July and August. The film starts at 2:00 pm.
Find more details about the club here.
OldTO.org: Mapping Archival Photos
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!
Read the article about OldTO in BlogTO!