For Maria Lamon, opening Mountainside Gallery was the realization of a lifelong dream.
by Dianne Rinehart // Photography by Anya Shor
You’d think that opening a new gallery would be enough to make anyone too busy to try to organize Collingwood business owners to launch a new venture to create a livelier and more attractive downtown for tourists and locals alike.
But not Maria Lamon, the energetic, fun-loving owner of Mountainside Gallery on Hurontario Street.
In her first summer in operation, last year, she was dismayed to find that some businesses on the street were closing at 4 p.m. on a summer evening.
“What a wasted opportunity!” There are tourists staying at Blue Mountain and the surrounding area who are looking for shops, restaurants and activities in Collingwood, Lamon points out. But when they get here, there is often nothing for them to do.
What she is envisioning is weekly walkathons on Thursday evenings where visitors and locals are invited to tour art galleries, eat at restaurants, shop and enjoy refreshments.
“Collingwood has such a beautiful downtown,” Lamon says. “I think we should do more.”
This initiative, of course, takes energy. But that is something this lovely 69-year-old does not lack. “I forget how old I am. I have all my spirit!” says the former model who used to race motorcycles.
Indeed, her entire life has been spent conquering mountains, if you will, and she isn’t slowing down one bit.
Lamon first arrived in Toronto from Argentina with her husband and six-month-old daughter in tow when she was 26. “It was crazy. I didn’t speak English and I didn’t know anyone, and I’d never seen snow,” she says. “The first five years in Canada were brutal, but I was determined to make it happen. I survived and it got better.”
She went on to raise two more children. Then, following a divorce after 27 years of marriage, she decided to move to Collingwood—again with nothing. “I met lots of friends and I was doing better, then COVID hit and did me in,” she says. “I was really stressed and really depressed.”“I decided I wanted to do something more meaningful with my life. I want my kids to be proud of me,” she says. “I’m not going to sit in my house waiting to be old.”
So, she decided to open a gallery.
“It’s hard work, but it’s possible,” she says of her cozy, friendly, warm gallery that is resplendent with gorgeous paintings and pieces of art created from glass, soapstone and metal.
“Since I opened the gallery, it has been magical,” she says. “I love to come in every day. I don’t feel like I’m working!”
And she wants to share that magic.
“I see the gallery as a nice place to come and bring your friends. It’s full of beautiful things, beautiful hope.”
— Maria Lamon
“I see the gallery as a nice place to come and bring your friends,” she says. “It’s full of beautiful things, beautiful hope.”
It’s also a place where people can explore their own artistic leanings through the art classes she offers with one of the painters she represents. Indeed, there are several small paintings in the gallery window that were created by her first group of budding artists, including an abstract she painted herself.
This isn’t Lamon’s first brush with a gallery. She helped one of her daughters open Analogue Gallery in Toronto. And when she moved to Collingwood, she worked for another gallery here.
When she initially planned to open her gallery, she already had contacts in the field. Every artist she and a colleague approached agreed to come with them. “It was such an encouragement. We knew they believed in us.”
Mountainside Gallery represents two local artists, landscape painter Robin Nyikos (who teaches the art classes at the gallery) and abstract artist Martha Moore.
The rest of the artists are from Vancouver, Alberta, Newfoundland, Quebec, Ontario and France. “We have a really good collection of eclectic art,” Lamon says. “We try to be the best possible.”
Indeed, eclectic is an understatement for the varied styles represented. But one thing unites them: most were inspired by nature.
For example, on one wall is an amazing bear, titled Friendly Visitor, that was created, magically it seems, with brightly painted pieces of Plexiglas by the brother and sister duo Barak and Miri Rozenvain, who collaborate under the name 2Wild.
Across the room is another dramatically different depiction of a bear, Fire & Ice, by painter Brian Porter, whose commissioned piece Turtle, elsewhere in the gallery, depicts the sea creature floating up from a garden of brightly coloured seaweeds through schools of neon-coloured fish.
Then there are the paintings from the “Extreme Skiers” collection by Emmy Award-winning artist Steve Tracy; and the graffiti-inspired paintings depicting the cartoon character Snoopy playing hockey, snowboarding, skating and skiing, by the French artist Kikayou.
And there are so many gorgeous landscapes in so many original styles by artists, including Montrealer Gordon Harrison, whose paintings have won awards, and Carole Malcom’s stunning shoreline and treescape paintings of birches.
On a coffee table and on art stands are beautiful glass sculptures of birds and blown and sandblasted vessels by Carol Nesbitt and bowls by Andrew Kuntz and Tara Marsh alongside soapstone cultures of wind-blown trees by Nick Leniuk and steel trees created by Jeff Smith.
There is even a whimsical, magical piece by the late Canadian Olympic figure skater and artist Toller Cranston.
How to choose? Lamon is ready to help customers pick the right piece, and even to go to their homes—whether they are in Collingwood, in the Greater Toronto Area, or elsewhere on the Niagara Escarpment—to help them find the right spot to display their art. She says customers can even try art out in their home for a while before they commit.
Lamon, who spent 27 years in a marriage being a mother and a grandmother, now says she is doing something for herself.
“I wanted to have something meaningful in my life before I’m done. This is it. This is my baby, and this is my pride,” she says of the lovely, comfy gallery she has created for customers to pause in, breathe in, and be inspired in.
“The main thing for me is I want to be happy,” says Lamon. “And I want people [who come here] to be happy too.”
