There was a building near Dufferin south of King, a warehouse that housed a few interesting artists when Toronto was still friendly. Dale Morningstar and Don Kerr started their studio there in the basement, called it the Gas Station. I think Dale lived in a closet somewhere on the third floor. Across the street was a larger more renovated building with some established businesses and artist studios. Michael Snow was one of them. Dale, with natural mischiefness and perhaps envy of Michael Snow’s reputation as celebrated artist, couldn’t help but try to fuck with him. When he saw him going towards or leaving his car, he would yell “hey Mike” and hide behind his window or otherwise make himself unseen. Michael would look around wondering if someone really just called. I can’t remember how I knew that, but I knew.
.
Before the Frank Geary altered Art Gallery of Ontario, an earlier renovation was done and James Pett had some sort of position to organize concerts. He asked me and Michael to play a celebratory reopening concert on two grand pianos. We met in his studio. I showed him the poster my friend Kyp Harness made for us which was great, but Michael didn’t like it. He made his own. It was an old decrepit mummy and a baby, presumably the two of us. It was funny and black and white and I think solarized. That day he was also very pleased to show me a painting he had recently completed, of an empty chair next to a wall in an art gallery. There was a painting within it but that part wasn’t visible within the canvass. I think it was about the idea of looking at the thing that isn’t usually considered the subject. This is a painting of the chair next to a painting. It’s a painting of the place where people would go to view art instead of the painting of the art but aren’t they both the art? Something like that was his point or so I thought. He was laughing like this was a fabulous joke but it wasn’t as funny to me. I had to decide whether to pretend I found it funny because I was intimidated that he was the famous guy or else hide me not finding it so hilarious. Of course I pretended this was a brilliant joke.
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I was at an opening of some of his work one time at Harbourfront. There was a piece, a video installation where a screen door repeatedly opened and closed and there was a plastic film on the glass of the screen door or else it was rain drops, either way each time the screen door slammed shut one would see the plastic or the rain drops freeze into a new static looking rorschach image. He was as pleased by this as he was the painting he showed me fifteen years earlier. This time I had no conflicts. I liked the principle in the video. I shared the view, enjoying what is going on in the world and how the simple actual stuff is as profound as whatever’s stored in the Louvre.
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He had a couple claims to fame that especially impressed me. One was the good fortune of living in the same building and being friends with Ornette Coleman, during some New York years. The other was stride piano. In every show he leaned into it. Eventually it became what his left hand explored while doing other things that had nothing whatsoever to do with it. You could see it was a first love that never failed.
.
I pissed him off one time earlier, I wrote a review of a CCMC concert. Among other observations I pointed out the bass player, Al Mattes, was boring, in my opinion anyway. I did not think this was a big deal but a shitstorm followed. Apparently Al wanted me guillotined. Michael called me on the telephone and said, “you have to apologize to Al”. I was mystified, I never attacked the man, never said anything as fungal as the usual Tim Perlich insults each week in Now Magazine. I’m also an improviser and I found Al the dead weight. I couldn’t understand why Michael was adamant and expected me to cave. I mean if you’re so hip and modern about seeing various points of view, shouldn’t it even extend to some pipsqueak’s review in an obscure publication about obscure music? But I was in my twenties and he was in his fifties plus he made those crazy birds in the Eaton centre. I caved. But at least when I apologized, Al couldn’t see behind my back my fingers were crossed. Maybe it was just an act of friendship to scold me, but I could have used Dale yelling “hey Mike” and disappearing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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