Patrick Little (BFA '92)

Patrick on Pavarotti Scaffold

I loved my time in Queen's BFA. There was a relatively smooth transition from our graduating show to convocation day to an appearance in the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition, then into the MFA at the San Francisco Art Institute with a grungy stint as a farm hand in between. The studio arts program at Queen's well prepared me for California, and the kaleidoscope of Bay Area artists and art stars I would have a chance to meet. Shooting pool with River Phoenix near City Lights Books was pretty much the same thing as a pint at the grad club with Otis and Jan. Returning to Toronto after a single semester, there were tech jobs working on the installation crews at the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, first on the General Idea's Fin de Siècle and then at a local gallery in my neighborhood of Lawrence Heights. I was looking for a career and it was elusive at first. After a few months of non‐posh basement living I talked my way into the outdoor advertising business, a station in life I occupy to this day. The first significant contract was a road trip to Montreal for a ten story portrait of Pavarotti painted entirely in halftone dots. Our team of "dotists" consisted of my BFA '91 pal Martin Kruck and my long time collaborator Sara Trent. While there was some naiveté and youthful inexperience I think we had our game faces on, smitten by the publicity and marquee visibility of outdoor advertising. In September 1993, Kruck set off to New York to continue his MFA while Trent and I headed west, painting multi‐media installations, first in Toronto and Ottawa, and then onto Edmonton. There was another semester for me in California, then the birth of our first child and we quickly settled into our Queen St. West home where we carry on the business of art making today.

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