Larry Strung is the Hamilton based photographer that created the much talked about art exhibit last year entitled Hamilton 365. For those of you who didn’t see our blog post about this project, the premise was that the artist would create a photo portrait of a different Hamiltonian for every day of an entire year.

After the 365 project was completed I remember running into Larry at a downtown street festival, we inevitably started talking about what was next for the artist who had dedicated a whole year to one subject. Larry had a couple different ideas but he was still looking for the right subject matter that he could immerse himself in.

Well it appears Larry Strung has found himself a new Hamilton based muse. The new project is called the: Stinson School Journal

A number of schools in Hamilton have been closed and put up for sale. Sadly many of these schools have not found new uses and remain empty and derelict. Because of this I am always happy to hear of any building being re-purposed and integrated back into the surrounding community (The Freeway Coffee House was originally a bank).

Developer, Harry Stinson (nicknamed the “Toronto Condo King”) purchased the Stinson School to turn the building into (you guessed it) condos. Larry Strung will be documenting the history of the school as well as the process of turning a collection of empty class rooms into homes. Pictures will be posted daily on the website: www.stinsonschooljournal.ca

Viewing some of the photos I can see why Larry Strung took on this project. There is so much Hamilton history and texture within the Stinson School Building. It will also be exciting to see the evolution of Harry Stinson’s vision for this historic Hamilton space.

As all change is in some way controversial, we would love to hear your comments about the Stinson School or any other re-purposed building.

On Sunday I had the privilege of talking about The Freeway being geographically “planted” in the Beasley Neighbourhood. As part of the evening I wanted to have a slide show of local  photos to help us think about the area that surrounds the coffee house.

I sent out a general call to The Freeway community to send me their neighbourhood photos and I got an email from  Maja Hipkin (who also contributes to this blog) with a link to her Flickr page. I am always excited to discover that somebody has a creative gift, and I would just like to thank Maja for sharing her beautiful and artistic photographs with us.

If you would like to check out more of Maja’s amazing photographic tour of Hamilton click here.

All photographs (c) Maja Hipkin

On Sunday night we had a great worship gathering as part of our current Advent series. This was week 3 of Advent and we engaged the topic of “celebration.” Good times.

You can see photos here.

www.helpportrait.com

2008 has long come and gone, but the project lives on in a new and exciting way. The Art Gallery of Hamilton has all 366 portraits (turns out that 2008 was a leap year) from the Hamilton 365 project on display until November 8th in the Jean & Ross Fischer Room.

A couple weeks ago my wife and I took our kids to see the exhibit. I loved the way it was organized, the photos were displayed in grids organized by the month they were shot in. The result was delightfully reminiscent of a calender. My kids turned 365 into a game, they would run ahead and see how many people they could find that they knew. Since they spend a lot of time at The Freeway, and we love to explore Hamilton ourselves, they recognized a number of familiar faces.

If you haven’t already done so, you should check out this wonderful (and free) exhibit at the Art Gallery of Hamilton. The AGH is just a 5 minute walk from The Freeway, and is located at 123 King Street West. Play the game, see how many people you know, or better yet, the next time you see a stranger on the street that you recognize from Hamilton 365, say hello and say you saw their wonderful portrait.

Just a suggestion for those of you who come to our worship gatherings on Sunday evenings: try to come a little early next Sunday and walk over to the gallery and check out the exhibit (the AGH is open until 5pm on Sundays). You’ll still have plenty of time to get back to The Freeway and enjoy your coffee before the worship gathering.