The Toronto Portraits - Ryan G. Hinds

what a champion!

Let's hope there won't be any sightings of Zach or whatever his name was.

No more kafuffels.

Bravo Robin.

Same comment as last week: it would be cool to see someone outside of the arts & entertainment scenes profiled at some point. I have a feeling it would elicit entirely different commentary.

:o

I'm not gonna say anything... :-)

You go, Ryan Hinds. You go.

Jordan - bankers, machinists and receptionists, though the soul of Toronto, are not interesting. These portraits of the fringe, though outside the experience of the vast majority of the city's residents, are more intriguing and cast our city in a less dull light. Kudos Mr. Sharp!

He's definitely no Hannah Krapivinsky (55), or the Chandler "Parkdale Hipster" Emo Chick, but at the end of the day, you got me browsing the post.

He seems like a cool portrait, but I dislike those purple pants very much. Hmnn, now he reminds me of the Rainbow Sun Franks dude.

I like those purple pants though, I really do!
Rainbow Sun Frank dude, yes, he does!
A fairly awesome portrait, I like how he posed in front of the graffiti...

Wow Mr. Sharp, I saw at least 2 fans here, oh wait, me, three! :o)

rainbow sun francks? wtf?

This portrait was least mediocre out of all of them so far. Also, just because somebody is a receptionist, teller or general office rat doesnt make them boring!!! Anybody can be interesting, maybe they just decided to get a job that actually pays instead of living the starving artist dream on their parents' tab....

It would be nice to see a young chef, a young doctor, a small business owner....anybody. These days anybody can call themselves an artist....

Luc Robitaille: I find your comment pretty lame.

What about people who support arts? Bankers can be an interesting lot - if you took time to get to know them. What about philanthropists? City planners? Activists? People who contribute to city living? Suggesting that only artists are interesting is pretty narrow minded.

These portraits are getting pretty tedious... Artists are a part of our city - but what about people who are out there making a difference and who are really a part of the community in which they work? Teachers, maybe?

I agree that not only artists are interesting people. Since I'm fascinated by people of all types, I'd love to learn about a young chef, entrepreneur, activist, teacher, scientist, etc. And the work they do, I value as highly as artists'. But since bankers, engineers, etc. etc. do work that isn't met with the same hoopla and fanfare as musicians and writers and etc. etc., I bet the comments section will explode with tons of people crying out "They're not interesting!".

Sigh. What a tough position Mr. Sharp is in. Can't please everybody. But I'm a big supporter of Toronto Portraits! It's exposed me to people I find very interesting.

Like Ryan G. Hinds! What a winner!

While I wholly agree that profiles of doctors, teachers and other professionals can be very compelling; everyone should keep in mind that blogTO is first and foremost a site dedicated to covering local arts and culture. So, it's not unreasonable for us to devote more emphasis to those in "the Toronto arts community" as subjects for Toronto Portraits.

Teachers, yes. Bankers, activists, yes yes...
But maybe how do you know Ryan is not secretly a CIA agent? Maybe he was a teacher or some kind of engineer or biochemists?...
carson and tim raised pretty good points :o)

i remember him at nuit blanche! he was wearing the most fantastic lipstick much like the sparkling red colour of dorothy gale's shoes!
aww, this article made me smile.

"everyone should keep in mind that blogTO is first and foremost a site dedicated to covering local arts and culture. So, it's not unreasonable for us to devote more emphasis to those in "the Toronto arts community" as subjects for Toronto Portraits."

I think that's a bit of a cop-out answer. I see more SEO-friendly "Best of [local business type]" lists on blogTO than arts & culture content ? so how about those local business owners whose goods & services commenters gush over? Newsworthy locals who may have had a mention in Morning Brew? Why don't you go profile a TTC driver, considering the amount of discussion about them?

Portraits reflecting the supposed "arts & culture" nature of the site shouldn't just be of those taking centre stage. There's a broad swath of Toronto encompassed in "culture".

(Unrelated question - will dashes, accents and other extended characters ever work in the comments?)

(I just wanted to say how refreshing it is to read comments that create intelligent discourse and healthy debate. Bashing the blog and bashing each other - from both sides of the fence - was such a dark cloud. It feels like spring!)

i was being sarcastic ('portraits of the fringe'), but sort of not sarcastic (they really are boring!)...i really don't know.

I find it a bit disingenuous to call this an arts & culture blog though. That's never been my impression of it, as a reader. It seems much broader, and that's nice.

Just be glad I stopped writing for blogTO, otherwise it'd be all Jeffree Star all the time.

Agreed. Culture is a very broad term and includes not just arts but also everything else we try to cover on the site including music, film, fashion, food and a whole lot more. But just to be clear - we're not claiming to be exclusively an arts and culture site. It's just our main focus and therefore that does leave room for other stuff.

nice portrait :) work, Ryan, work!!

I've been a big fan of Ryan G. Hinds for many years. Perhaps I'm biased. But I think the profile does a great job of highlighting this particular man's infectuous positivity and undeniable larger than life talent. It has inpsired me to come back to read more profiles! Thanks!

Definitely the most interesting person profiled so far. Good pick!

Also as someone has already pointed out, the least bad photographs so far.

I like the photographs every week...well most of them! :o)

cool concept, though I feel like this series has trouble fully capturing some of the people it features (Ryan is a perfect example of this)

I have been following the career of this young man as well as the Toronto portrait series. Both keep getting better and better!

Ryan looks great here

I agree with the comments above. This guy's cool and all, but young, dyanmic, Torontonians are more than just fringe arty, hipster folk. I'd like to see a young, dynamic Torontonian small business story or something. Speaking of hipsters. I was condo hunting this Saturday in the King West area, the Shank street townhouses to be precise, and man...everyone there just falls into the young professional, I'm cool, scene perfectly. I still can't decide if that's a good or bad thing.

"Also as someone has already pointed out, the least bad photographs so far."

I think the word you're trying so hard not to use is 'best' as in "the best so far."

Ryan is one of my best friends and an amazing artist, who's really not afraid to push the envelope. i gotta let the world know! :)
love,
carlos
(from lima, peru)

HEY RYAN THATS SO COOL! I know this guy! he is really nice! I grabbed his bulge once haha~

keep on going Ryan! :)