Luminato and the Distillery District

Luminato was an incredible accomplishment for Toronto, a multi-disciplinary arts festival where all the major players contributed ideas in a big way. Especially impressive were the offerings at Harbourfront Centre (which I love), the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Distillery District. My boss and colleague Bruce Mau, and his wife Bisi Williams, were involved in the planning, as were a who's-who of the culture scene in Toronto. Check out their website for more information and a full itinerary of what was presented this year.

While at the Distillery, we did all the other usual stuff of course. Shopping at Lileo (well, window shopping - I didn't want to spend $80 on the John Lennon t-shirt); buying chocolate at SOMA (the best chocolate shop in the world); eating crepes (Shellie did); eating at a new restaurant called CafeUno; buying some coffee at Balzac's; checking out a few galleries, including the Atom Egoyan installation.

Oh, and most importantly, the girls had makeovers courtesy of L'Oreal and their Redken line. L'Oreal was the major sponsor of Luminato, breaking Canadian arts sponsorship records for amount pledged, as far as I understand. And in the cool loft space where the makeovers were happening, there was also a very fun art-making studio that captured Lily and Meredith's imagination.

I'm going to post more images later but thought I would get this preliminary group up and running to keep this damn site fresh!












We recently spent the better part of the day at the Distillery District again, as we do almost weekly. This particular occasion we were joined by Meredith's cousins, Amy and Lily, my sister Lisa, and her boyfriend Peter. Maureen and her daughter Grace also joined us for part of the festivities.