Last Friday I went to the Toronto 2026 edition of Pancakes and Booze which bills itself as ‘The Art Show Reinvented’. Overall, I was pretty underwhelmed. It was too packed to be able to move and pretty much none of the artists were interesting. I flagged 3 of ~ 75 to check out on Instagram later and ended up following only one them. Unfortunately, that one had a fantastic painting in their profile that they didnt have with them at the show.

A couple messages back and forth, and oops. I now own a glorious portait of Dolly Parton by Joely Sosnovich Raphael.

It is hard to describe just how good this painting is. The hands. The eyes. The yellows and whites of the hair. … And was done as a school assignment.

I’m sure I could push my luck and drill into the wall (it is concrete), but for now, it propped up on some boxes.

Dolly by Joely Sosnovich Raphael