Image: Toronto-travel-guide.com
The corner of Dundas and McCaul is one of the weirdest parts of the city. Sure, you won’t witness impromptu parades, nor will you find homeless men selling you detailed geometric drawings of four-dimensional objects (that happened to me in Parkdale once) – but it’s where you can see four distinct personalities of Toronto collide.
To the east of the intersection, you’ll notice the spill-over of Bay Street banks and businesses along University Avenue. Westward, you’re already edging into Chinatown, while just north, you can sip a backyard beer with the university students in their $500-a-month four-bedroom apartments. Looking south, you get a picturesque view of the CN Tower, interrupted only by that pencil box thing we know as OCAD. And right at the centre, of course, stands the wavy-windowed AGO.
While it’s a strange junction of Toronto worlds, that seemingly innocuous corner feels like a little neighbourhood unto itself. When I walk around Dundas and McCaul, I wonder what the AGO-bound tourists must think of our city. In other cities on this continent, art galleries seem to form an isolated district of their own. The Art Institute of Chicago is bounded by the (really awesome) waterfront and Millenium Park, and faces onto the downtown traffic of the Loop from a distance. In New York City, the Met is like a temple on Fifth Avenue, backed by Central Park, and far-removed from the street with its columns and endless steps.
But in Toronto, you don’t get that sort of distance. The AGO’s glass canoe side nearly hovers over the street, while most of the people on the sidewalk aren’t even gallery-goers. They’re business owners, or art kids, or just people who happen to live or work or hang out in the neighbourhood. The thing is, Toronto isn’t actually missing out as far as art galleries go: the AGO’s proximity to the street and to city life is actually a good thing.
That is, psychologically speaking, the AGO is actually a really good place to make art. For decades, researchers have been studying where creativity comes from – and it’s not just in artists, but in scientists, teachers, toddlers, and truck drivers. Creativity is about connecting previously unconnected ideas in a way that is new and useful. And one of the best ways to study that is in people who produce art.
One way of making creative connections, as scientists have found, is through distraction. Essentially, as we go through the world, we tend to pick up ideas, images, and sounds without even realizing. It’s in our moments of creative insight (the “Aha”s or Eureka moments) that those unconsciously remembered elements become connected, and break to the surface of consciousness. That’s what makes a good idea.
What’s great about the AGO is that the surrounding bits of Toronto are so full of distraction. The landscape changes with every few meters – from the quaint residential branches around Baldwin Village to the trinket-peddling storefronts in Chinatown. It’s the perfect place to absorb ideas and store them up for a later insight.
Certain people are more prone to distraction than others. Older adults, for example, typically have a weaker filter for blocking out irrelevant information. But it’s the accumulation of initially irrelevant information that often builds up the best creative ideas. That means that most successfully creative people are able to let their barriers down, and take in their environments.
But what do you do after you’ve had your initial moment of insight? There’s still a lot of work between the initial idea and the Grammy nomination. That’s where creativity requires periods of narrow focus: you need the time and attention to work at a creative idea until it’s complete.
That means creativity requires both the focus, and the distraction. That’s also why creative people tend to be good at both processes. They’re good at regulating their own minds to either be attentive or to be open to distraction at the right moments.
The AGO’s surroundings are surprisingly well-suited to helping those processes happen. For the insight stage, you have the diversity of the neighbourhood itself to provide ample distraction – but you also have Grange Park. Studies show that being relaxed helps us uncover insights, and green space is one of the best places to do that. Being in a good mood also facilitates creative thinking, so taking a stroll through the gallery itself (usually a pleasurable experience, you’d hope) can set you up for a moment of insight. And when the gallery closes, you can always find solace across the street at the pub for a drink – indeed, alcohol (in moderation) can help creativity too.
The next stage, which requires narrow focus to block out distraction, is one we’re all more familiar with. It’s the stage that most of us achieve through coffee. And lucky for us, the neighbourhood is full of it.
So while I tend to get most of my good ideas in the shower (scientists have studied this too – they help you relax and bring on creative insights), my walks through Toronto around the AGO actually make a close second. The trick to creativity is knowing what to do and where to go in order to let the ideas percolate and finally rise to the surface. So it’s lucky we have an art-filled neighbourhood that’s the perfect place for doing exactly that.
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Erene Stergiopoulos writes for Toronto Standard. Follow her on Twitter @fullerenes.
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