P1020848 Last Saturday, I was joined by family and friends at the ÜmlaPrime gallery closing party at Playful Grounds. For most in attendance, it was their first time coming into Playful Grounds, and their first time seeing my non-portraiture work. Although I've grabbed a bite at Playful Grounds before, this was my first experience in doing a party with them. I had actually first heard about Playful Grounds through one of my clients, who had thrown a first birthday party for her daughter last year, and well, the rest is just history!

I will be taking down my work after the Labour Day weekend to make way for the next awesome artist who will have his/her work on display at the café, so if you haven't had a chance to pop by to see my work, I do have a few photos to share with you. Some photos were taken by me, on the day that I set up the gallery, and some photos were taken by my parents. (Thanks Mom & Dad!)

The nice thing about Playful Grounds is that they have a LOT of wall space. Before I put up my photos, I popped into the café to take photos of the walls, so that I would have a better idea of the space that I'd be working with, along with having a feel for the number and sizes of the photos that I would need to print.

I chose to print all of my photos as standouts. A standout-mounted image is basically a photo printed on professional photographic paper, and backed onto 3/4-inch foam core. The foam core has sleek, black edges, and has holes at the back, so the images are ready to mount. Standouts are part of my regular product offerings, and I love them because they have a great modern look. Here's a photo that I took on the day that I set up my gallery. It took me about 4 hours to put everything up. Playful Grounds has some really awesome big walls, which was great for displaying my work. My challenge, however, was the fact that there were booth-style seats lining the two big walls that I was using, so I had to put my rock climbing upper-body strength to good use to prop myself on the wee ledge at the top of the booth seats, so that I could put up the velcro hanging system that I used to secure my images to the wall. And on that note, I'd like to give a big shout-out to my awesome client Sophie, who used these to hang 8x10s from her session with me on her own walls. AWESOME suggestion! PS: It's a good thing that I'm not superstitious at all, because I lost count of the number of times that I walked under that ladder! :)
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I ended up going 9 separate mini-themes as part of ÜmlaPrime. Below are some photos that I took of the collections with my iPhone before I carted them over to Playful Grounds.

Toronto

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Beginnings

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Masked (top) & Word on the Street (bottom)

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People

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Snails

P1020840 Music

P1020831 Sunsets

P1020825 Mish-Mash

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The food and the service were phenomenal, by the way. (Thanks, Davina!!!) I ordered some bruscetta, a cheese and olive platter, coconut shrimp, fruit, and some AMAZING beef/mushroom/pepper skewers that were to die for. I'm still dreaming of those...

I'd like to extend a HUGE thanks to everyone who came, and to everyone who couldn't make it, but still contributed to Second Harvest. We raised a total of $200, which translates to 400 meals for Toronto's hungry. Thanks also to Second Harvest, for promoting the event, and to Playful Grounds, for promoting the event, and giving my photos a place to call home for the month of August, and for throwing an AWESOME party! :D

PS: If any of the photos that you saw at the ÜmlaPrime Gallery tickles your fancy, be sure to contact me. Most of the photos are available for sale at various sizes. Peace, love, and über-Ümla happiness!