It was 1961 when June Fuller easing her way through a clutch of fourth year painting and drawing colleague’s, her white lab coat covered in oil-color brush marks from three years of painting and drawing classes, appeared before Jerome, a second year hopeful, wondering who were these ‘almost graduating’ people. In his mind he snapped a photo of June, a kind of premonition as the two would meet six years later.
The following year June would depart for Greece with no intention of ever returning, Jerome would finish the Fine Arts program at OCA, and be invited to teach. As well, be employed with Yvonne William’s stained Glass Studio; where he was heavily invested in the pursuit of designing religious windows of ‘significance’, only to find within four years –they were… and not.
Gille Morin had finished a degree at the Montreal School of Art and Design, moved to Ottawa for three years then in the late sixties moved to Toronto. All three, sensitive to their own personal processes and what inhibited them, responded to Anton Chekoff’s dictum ‘if you want to change your art, change your life’.
In 1972 Gilles at his studio on DuPont street formed a Friday night figure drawing group; seven or eight people would show up to draw, talk and of course drink afterwards. Between the ‘artist marathons’ and Gille’s ‘drawing salons’ the ease of artists coming together was being facilitated- June and Jerome were both part of this moment.
In 1978 Jerome received a commission from the architect Andrew Volgesi to design a large sculptural relief mural for the new Jane Bloor Medical Center. A large studio was necessary. Twelve thousand square feet of space was found at nine Davies Ave. Endless lengths of floor were sanded and verathaned, studio spaces dived up and within a year money raised to built a large gallery in the center of the huge space, all supported in part by the collective rent of each artist – Studio Gallery Nine was born.
It was there in her studio June developed many of the works in this exhibition particularly the cardboard collages – metallic painted pieces. She once remarked that
“ Some of the happiest moments of her life were there, surrounded by her friends and fellow artists all working” – ‘changing their lives – changing their art’.