It's not exactly a typical story: girl makes it big on Bay Street, suffers through the financial crisis, and subsequently decides to open an art gallery. In a sort of defiance of the second law of thermodynamics, Alison Snowball committed to making her life decidedly less messy by focusing her energy on exploring both her own creativity and through celebrating the work of others. Her Parkdale gallery is an open space in all senses of the term, the main goal being to cultivate the artist that lies in all of us.

Read my review of Snowball in the galleries section.

The 2010 CONTACT photography festival kicks off May 1 and runs to May 31, marking Toronto's first real month of spring with its pervasive influence. And pervasive it is: CONTACT is the largest photography event in the world (yes, the world), boasting over 1000 artists hailing from Canada and beyond. Their work is being shown at over 200 venues across the Greater Toronto Area in both typical spaces like galleries and museums and unexpected places ranging from Pearson International Airport to Caplansky's Deli.

The goal of CONTACT is simple: to celebrate and foster an appreciation of the art and profession of photography. This mandate is responsible for the sheer breadth of the fest; in addition to photography exhibits, there are also artist talks, opportunities for photographers to have their portfolios reviewed by photography professionals, events like photography workshops and screenings of photography-related films on subjects like Annie Leibovitz, Helmut Newton, Ansel Adams and, most importantly, Marshall McLuhan.

The pervasive physical presence of the festival ties in perfectly with this year's festival theme, "Pervasive Influence," which is inspired in part by McLuhan's theories on media and culture.

After incarnations as SPIN Gallery and the Queen West Market, the bright, warehouse-style space above the Social is once again home to an art gallery. Twist opened at the end of January with a show by Dmitri Fedosseev, but closed soon after to undergo renovations. With those (nearly) complete, I decided it was time to stop by to check out the new gallery and cafe.

Find out more about Twist in the galleries section.

While my first arts roundup for blogTO might be limited geographically, the breadth of what I saw this week in and around Dundas West defies the physical limitations of a single street.

Here's a summary of some of the stellar exhibits I took in.