The Tom Phillips Memorial at Artists 25

            On Sunday morning, though my elbow was slightly less painful, doing yoga with it in certain poses was still difficult and sometimes more so.

            Just before noon I rode up the street to Artists 25 for the Tom Philips memorial. I was prepared to punch the code to get in the front door but there was a sign that instructed visitors to Artists 25 to go around to the south alley. I went around but didn’t see an alley, so I was confused. I keyed in the code and opened the door because the door really is on the south side of the alley but then I saw that the sign on the door definitely had a crude map with an arrow pointing out and around the building to the other side, so I went back and found what I wouldn’t call an alley but rather a narrow laneway. The fire escape door of the studio was propped open and I decided that it was safe to just lean my bike against the wall without locking it.

            The studio had been decorated with many of Tom’s paintings and there were other works on the walls. The stage had some of Tom’s sculptures and woodcarvings too. The first person I saw was Maria Kasstan, whom I knew as a fellow model from the time I first began posing for artists, but who moved onto other things about ten years ago. The second person was Michael Jansen, for whom I used to work a lot as a model but haven't done so in this century. We shook hands and he told me I haven’t changed a bit. I told him that would only be a good thing if I looked good before. He assured me that I looked 20 when I was 50.

            I stood in front of Maria, who was sitting with a dark haired woman in our age range who was wearing an attractive blue dress. Maria told me, “You know Karen”, and Karen got up to give me a hug, though I'm not sure if I knew her, but it's possible. Karen is also an art model and used to work at OCADU when it was still just OCA.

            Since OCA was the main thing that all three of us have in common, that’s mostly what we talked about. Karen recalled there being a pub downstairs at OCA, but neither Maria nor I remembered anything like that. The unofficial pub for OCA students and teachers was the now long gone Beverley Tavern at 240 Queen Street West.

            I mentioned that after I’d taken five years off from modelling in the late 80s and had trouble getting back in at OCA, Maria had put in a good word for me with the model coordinator. Karen complained that she wasn’t able to get back in to work at the college.

            We talked about various art teachers that we remembered, a lot of which had been drinkers and some of which had been a little tipsy while teaching.

            Karen went to talk to someone else and I sat down with Maria to chat some more. She told me that after her husband Jim died, Tom came to the vigil. The circumstances of Jim’s death were that he died of a heart attack on the street and since he was not dressed well the police had thought that he was homeless and had perhaps thought that he was an unconscious drunk. Maria believes that the police would have gotten Jim to the hospital sooner if they had not made that wrong assessment and so she began to try through legal circles to make them accountable. Tom paid for her Metropass for three months so she could freely travel in the city for meetings with lawyers and other people that could help her investigate Jim’s death.

            After about half an hour the testimonials began.
            The first one was from a middle aged, shaved headed, bespectacled and goateed member of Artists 25 that I’ve seen for a few years at the studio, though I forget his name. He talked about his and Tom’s relationship as fellow painters and how they would look at and comment on one another’s work. Tom would show one of his paintings and usually say something like, “What do you think of this mess?"

            Next Michael Jansen spoke for about twenty minutes, telling how he first met Tom and how their relationship developed. Michael was 16 years old and doing sketches on the beach when Tom suddenly loomed over him and said, “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours!” To looked at Michael’s sketchbook, critiqued it a bit and then suggested that they draw each other right there. Tom became one of Michael’s mentors, along with Warren Lucock, who was also a close friend of Tom’s. I think that I remember working for Lucock at Northern Secondary School.

Michael once asked Tom why he’d approached him on the beach and Tom answered, “Because you were such a pretty boy!” It had crossed my mind over the years that Tom might have been gay, but he exuded no sexuality whatsoever, so I concluded that he was more likely asexual. I guess though that Tom having been homosexual would have worked as an explanation for why he declared, after I’d turned down his invitation to dinner at his place, that he would never ask me again.

            When Michael was finished speaking, Paris Black and his girlfriend got up to leave and explained that they were going to a parade that “Tom would appreciate”. I wonder if it’s true that Tom would “appreciate” the Gay Pride Parade. Whether he was Gay or not I really doubt that the Pride parade was really his scene. He probably would have enjoyed painting some of the costumes if he could have gotten participants onto a stage in a studio, but I don’t think he’d go for any event where he couldn’t sit and paint.

            Maria and I agreed that we’ve never liked parades of any kind. I told her I was very relieved when my daughter lost interest in the Santa Clause parade.

            Next, Tom’s second cousin Lisa, who brought most of the food, came forward to speak. Lisa was given some resources in Tom’s will to apply towards Tom’s artistic legacy. It turns out though that Maria is the one that introduced Lisa to Tom.

            Lisa spoke about Artists 25 and what it meant to Tom and how Tom had supported it financially but now it’s got to support itself. She said there might be some money down the road for the studio from Tom’s will but members are going to have to step up. We learned that Artists 25 has finally gotten the third board director it needs in order to become a corporation. There was also something about a student of Michael Jansen who has volunteered to donate a considerable amount of money towards the rent.

            Lisa said that every artist that uses the studio should become a member, including the models. That struck me as odd because I was worried that any model that worked at Artists 25 would be expected to be a member or become one. I learned from Cy later on that a lifetime membership would only be $10.

            Lisa also said that help would be needed cataloguing the thousands of Tom’s paintings in his house in Etobicoke.

            Afterwards Michael Jansen and a few others sat down with Maria and I and we chatted more casually about Tom. I said that Tom was one of the first people that hired me when I started modelling in 1982. He asked how I’d gotten started and I told the story of how I’d been working as a furniture mover and the bottom fell out of the housing market which caused there to be a lot less work. One day during that time I was sitting in the By the Way Café at Bloor and Brunswick and reading “In Search of the Miraculous” by P.D. Ouspensky when I noticed that a guy at the table near mine was also reading a book by Ouspensky. This was Ken Barth. We talked about Ouspensky and Gurdjieff but I also learned that Ken worked as an artist’s model. On hearing that I was looking for another line of work he offered me some numbers for modelling work and Tom’s was one of them. In the mid 80s Ken got married and had a kid and went into selling life insurance.

            The gathering gradually began dissolving at around 15:00, but it was almost 16:00 when I left. I went home and had a late lunch, and then I took a late siesta.

            I didn’t take a bike ride that afternoon, partly because I’d been at the memorial so long but also because it was raining.

            I had an egg, some cheese and some toast with a beer for dinner while watching two episodes of Dobie Gillis.

            In the first story Dobie and Maynard visit their old high school and discover that their former English teacher, Mr Pomfritt is giving up teacher for financial reasons. Dobie goes about trying to track down all of the most successful people that Pomfritt had taught and to have them come to a party for Pomfritt, urging him to stay but Maynard screwed up mailing the letters. They ended up with just a handful of people with ordinary jobs such as postman and janitor, but the things they had learned from him moved him so much that he decided to continue teaching.

            In the second story, Dobie, Maynard and Zelda are minding the grocery store on a dark and stormy night when their imaginations get the better of them and they think that a visiting movie crew are all aliens from outer space. They even think that Dobie’s parents are really aliens in disguise. They lock everyone in the freezer including the cops, Dobie’s parents, the film crew and Zelda.