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The Women’s Cultural Building (WCB) was a feminist cultural organization, or women’s collective, that aimed to initiate and support artistic projects and programmes promoting community and feminist concerns. It emerged with the intention of salvaging the presence of a Toronto women’s cultural centre following the dissolution of the Pauline McGibbon Centre in November 1981. The collective from the onset encouraged inclusive membership and collaborative programming, aiming to “develop a critical framework that functions within a feminist discourse by placing work in a social, political and aesthetic context.” The WCB was most active during the years 1982-1984.
Collective members included Kay Armitage, Rene Baert, Carole Conde, Christine Curlin, Rosemary Donegan, Susan Feldman, Colette Gagnon, Lina Fratticelli, Cynthia Grant, Janice Hladki, Johanna Householder, Sandra Janz, Kerri Kwinter, Tanya Mars, Joyce Mason, Christina Ritchie, Tanya Rosenberg, Lisa Steele, Nesya Shapiro and Susan Swan, among others.
Notable WCB programmes include the “Women Building Culture” festival, which included a series of events such as the “Womanfilm” film festival, the “Pork Roasts” exhibitions, “Storefronting” installations, the “Edible Art Show”, the “Five Minute Feminist Cabaret”, as well as a number of performances, talks, and slideshows. Other WCB activities and projects included the Women’s Info Hotline, panel discussions, workshops, toolkits, benefit concerts, poetry readings, window displays, independent film screenings and a resource video library. The collective began activity in November 1981, incorporated in March 1983, and ceased activity in approximately March 1997. The subsequent collective decision to transfer WCB archives to the Women’s Art Resource Center in the late 1990s was celebrated with a final exhibition titled “Building Women’s Culture: Women’s Cultural Building - Selections from the Archive.”
It is important to note that the use of the word “Building” in the collective’s name referred primarily to the verb. Though they did acquire a storefront headquarters for a brief period, the collective organized predominantly in the homes of its members and satellite spaces. The WCB launched their storefront headquarters and gallery at 563 Queen Street West with the Pork Roast’s exhibition on March 14th, 1983. Other possible locations referenced in the papers are 350 College Street, Suite 1 and 984 Queen Street West. Satellite spaces and venues that hosted WCB events included the A.R.C. gallery, A Space, Cameron Tavern, Dufflet Pastries, Nightwood Theatre, Nine Forty, Pages, Pelican, Stagger Lee’s, the Rivoli, Bloor Cinema, and the Centre for Contemporary Photography.

William John Wood (1877-1954) was a Canadian artist known for simple genre paintings and for his friendship with members of the Group of Seven. He studied briefly at the Ontario College of Art, and lived in Orillia and Midland, Ontario, among other places.

Workscene Gallery was a non-profit, artist-run co-operative gallery in Toronto, 1974-1995. It originally provided studio space and a venue for exhibitions of members’ works, later expanding to exhibiting other artists’ works and curated exhibitions. Members were responsible for all programming and administration with individual artists responsible for content, installation and promotion of exhibitions. Members were required to have a strong art practice, to provide financial support through membership fees and be committed to promoting the arts community.
The co-operative was incorporated May 16, 1974 as Workscene Co-operative Corporation with the following directors: Gissa Geraldine Gold, Ian James Shaw, James Henry Tiley, Robert John Varty and Badanna Bernice Zack. In May 1988, the corporation was re-activated by the current group of artist members who began operating the Workscene Galley at 1020 Queen Street West as an exhibition space. This storefront gallery was formerly the Ruby-Fiorino Gallery and the co-operative remained in this space until the lease expired at the end of August 1990. In September 1990, Workscene Gallery relocated to 183 Bathurst Street, a building which was a focal point at that time for Toronto’s arts community and housed other artist-run centres, arts organizations and magazines. Workscene Co-operative Corporation also produced a magazine as an independent program, Work Seen Artists Forum, to provide a forum for artists to write about their work and issues of concern. In the summer of 1992 the magazine became a separate entity with no ties to the Workscene Gallery, changing its name to Artword Artists Forum.
Workscene Co-operative Corporation was dissolved in February 1992. Workscene Gallery Art Association Toronto Inc. was formed in June 1992 with the following directors: Jocelyne Regina Belcourt Salem (President), Yvonne Maria Eva Singer (1st Vice President), Ian David Lazarus (2nd Vice President), David John Renaud (Treasurer), and Sheila Ann Gregory (Secretary). The final exhibition of Workscene Gallery ended January 28, 1995. Workscene ceased operations permanently in 1995.

Mary E. Wrinch (Kirby-le-Soken Essex, England, 1877 - Toronto, Ontario, 1969) was a Canadian painter and printmaker.

Frances Loring (1887-1968) and Florence Wyle (1881-1968) were Canadian sculptors. Frances Loring was born in Wardner, Idaho. She studied art in Europe as well as Chicago, Boston, and New York. Florence Wyle was born in Trenton, Illinois, and studied medicine at the University of Illinois and then art at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she later taught classes. She then worked in New York where she shared a studio with Frances Loring. Loring and Wyle moved to Toronto in 1912, and in 1920 bought an old church and converted it into a studio. Loring and Wyle were both active in Canadian art movements and were founding members of the Sculptors Society of Canada in 1928. Their work can be seen at the National Gallery in Ottawa, Art Gallery of Toronto, and in the streets of Toronto on such buildings as the Toronto General Hospital and Timothy Eaton Memorial Church, and on memorials in small towns in Ontario, New Brunswick and Maine.

Maud Eleanor Yarker (1867-1912) was a Canadian painter who was born in the province of Ontario and lived in the Toronto area. She died in Toronto (in the former York, Ont.) in 1912.

Timothy Melvin Zuck, Canadian artist and educator, was born in 1947 in Erie, Pennsylvania. He attended Wilmington College from 1966-1967 and 1968-1969. There he majored in philosophy and psychology and took a few courses in art history and sculpture. In 1967-1968, Zuck joined his parents on a year-long mission to India, where he studied at Madras Christian College. Zuck received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NLA.SCAD) in 1971. While at NLA.SCAD, he did performance, film, photographic and other process-oriented and conceptual projects. In Halifax Zuck met and married Robyn Randell. He then earned his Master of Fine Arts from the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California in 1972. After completing his graduate studies, Zuck returned to NLA.SCAD in late 1972, where he was Assistant Professor until 1979. While teaching at NLA.SCAD, he continued to work on his conceptual projects. In 1975, Zuck began to focus on painting, in which he had no formal training. In 1979, he resigned from NLA.SCAD and began to paint full-time in Purcell’s Cove, near Halifax, Nova Scotia. Zuck became a Canadian citizen in 1983. The Zucks moved from Purcell’s Cove to Kingston, Ontario, where they lived from 1982-1984 and then lived for three years in downtown Toronto, where their daughter, Anna, was born in 1985. They then moved to Midland, Ontario. In addition to taking part in many artist expeditions, Zuck won a poster competition for the XV Olympic Winter Games in 1988 in Calgary, Alberta. He moved to Calgary in 2002 to teach at the Alberta College of Art and Design. Tim Zuck is represented by the Sable-Castelli Gallery in Toronto, Ontario and the Paul Kuhn Gallery in Calgary, Alberta. His work has been included in numerous group and solo exhibitions in Canada, the United States and Europe, and may be found in the collections of numerous Canadian galleries and museums.