Contemplate, create and develop your art in the sanctuary that Canadian painter Doris McCarthy called home

TORONTO – The Ontario Heritage Trust is now accepting applications to the 2022 Doris McCarthy Artist-in-Residence Program. Residencies are available throughout 2022, with flexible terms ranging from one to three months. The application deadline is September 30, 2021.

The residency program is open to professional Canadian artists practising a wide array of disciplines. Artists will have the opportunity to live and create in the inspiring natural setting of the Doris McCarthy Artist-in-Residence Centre, Fool’s Paradise, the former home and studio of celebrated Canadian landscape artist Doris McCarthy.

Located on the Scarborough Bluffs in Toronto, Fool’s Paradise offers a tranquil environment for artists looking to escape, re-energize and focus on their art – in the sanctuary that McCarthy called home.

To learn more and to fill out an application, visit www.heritagetrust.on.ca/dmair.

The program and use of Fool’s Paradise is one of the ways that the Trust is leading the way to find creative and vibrant new uses of heritage spaces. As part of the residency, artists are required to provide a mentorship opportunity to support the development of an emerging artist or artists.

Doris McCarthy donated her home to the Trust in 1998 with the express intention of allowing other artists to have the same opportunity to live and work at the site that had fostered so much of her own artistic expression. She lived there until her death in 2010. The Trust launched the artist-in-residence program in 2015 to contribute to the artistic and cultural legacy of Doris McCarthy by demonstrating the inspirational value of the landscape and promoting excellence in Canadian art, music and writing. To date, the Trust has welcomed 43 artists to Fool’s Paradise.

The Trust welcomes applications from artists practising in a variety of creative disciplines, as well as artists from underrepresented backgrounds. This program is supported generously by the RBC Foundation’s Emerging Artists project.

Quick facts:

• Doris McCarthy (1910-2010) was one of Canada’s most renowned landscape painters of the second half of the 20th century, who worked out of her home, Fool’s Paradise, for nearly 70 years.
• McCarthy donated Fool’s Paradise to the Ontario Heritage Trust in 1998 to conserve its scenic, esthetic, natural and cultural values, with the wish that following her death it would become an artist-in-residence centre and venue for heritage activities.
• To date, 43 artists have been awarded residencies at Fool’s Paradise.
• The Trust works with the Doris McCarthy Gallery (University of Toronto Scarborough), OCAD University, the Ontario Society of Artists and the Writer’s Union of Canada on the development of the program.

Learn more:

• Read more on the history of the program.
• Read profiles of the 2021 artists in residence.
• Watch videos about the Doris McCarthy Artist-in-Residence Program.

Contact:

Patricia Njovu, Senior Marketing and Communications Specialist, Ontario Heritage Trust. Patricia.Njovu@heritagetrust.on.ca, 437-248-1439

About the Ontario Heritage Trust

The Ontario Heritage Trust (the Trust) is an agency of the Ontario Ministry of Heritage, Sport, Tourism and Culture Industries. It conserves, interprets and shares Ontario’s heritage. The Trust conserves provincially significant cultural and natural, tangible and intangible heritage, interprets Ontario’s history, celebrate its diversity and educates Ontarians of its importance in our society. The Trust envisions an Ontario where we conserve, value and share the places and landscapes, histories, traditions and stories that embody our heritage, now and for future generations.

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