"I spent my life on the streets hustling,'' says Tom Butterfield of his early days as a freelance photographer in Toronto.

"Many photographers dropped out and went into other professions. Only a small percentage actually made it, the rest were down and dirty, fighting for some percentage of the pie.

"Along the way, I received a Canada Council grant for the arts, which I was grateful for. It took me off the hustle all the time and allowed me artistic freedom from the notion of selling, selling, selling, and let me get back to focusing on the art. It was a great outlet for me.'' Decades later -- the memory of walking down Lakeshore Boulevard in January, frost as thick as ash in the air, gloved hands around a camera looking out over ice-choked Lake Ontario still vivid in his mind -- Tom created a similar outlet for local artists when he launched `Artists Up Front!...Street'.

One of the initiatives of the Masterworks Foundation, of which Tom is the director, `Artists Up Front!...Street' showcases an exhibition by a different Bermudian or resident artist every two weeks throughout six months of the year.

It functions as an informal learning process for artists, freeing them from the constraints of commercial galleries and providing them with an opportunity to develop a rapport with the public. The minimal commission charged by the gallery is designed to encourage artists to keep producing work.

"By providing a platform, we're extending an invitation for artists to stage their work, giving them a facility to enjoy the notion of visibility,'' Tom says.

"There is a personal attachment to this. I was once a freelance photographer, and galleries take a large cut of artwork sold. I understand that, but because we come from the view of a not-for-profit organisation, we are encouraging artists to ply their craft, their eye, their intellect here in Bermuda. This is important because living in Bermuda is extremely expensive. It's discouraging in many ways to young artists.

"It's not like I had forgotten what I had gone through. You remember those years and the lessons learned.'' After finishing a degree in fine arts at Ryerson in 1975, Tom stayed on in Toronto for the next several years.

"Toronto was very exciting then, there was a lot of change coming out of the 60s,'' he says. "It was a very multicultural place.'' Aromas from Portuguese and Caribbean food markets drifted through Kensington and summertime festivals on the islands in Lake Ontario drew musicians playing styles from gospel to Tennessee Bluegrass to Appalachian fiddle. Global conflicts sent waves of immigrants into Toronto -- East Europeans fleeing the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia, Americans escaping conscription to the Vietnam War and Quebecois dodging LFQ hostilities. Ontario encouraged migrant peoples to keep their culture and traditions alive in their new home.

Perhaps the multicultural atmosphere of Toronto fed Tom's belief that Bermuda's art community should be inclusive of artists and audiences of diverse backgrounds.

In keeping with this, Artists Up Front!...Street shows the work of artists with a range of styles, who are black, white, male, female, young and old.

"Bermuda is made up of a number of different backgrounds and ethnicities. We wanted to make sure that Artists Up Front!...Street was a good balance of peoples by sex, race and age, because for many people the exhibition of art was a closed opportunity and remained unknown,'' Tom says.

Continued on page 32 Masterworks Foundation booming Continued from page 29 "That's all changed now. We've seen a dramatic increase in Bermudians coming to our little Front Street operation for a Friday night viewing.'' Assistant director Elise Outerbridge explains: "There is a core of regular gallery-goers, but that has evolved. Each one of the artists, from such diverse backgrounds, brings his or her friends to the openings and it starts like that. Then people start coming to the shows and bringing their own friends. It leads to a domino effect that the whole art community is feeling now.'' "In a relatively short period of time, we have broken down the perception that going to a gallery is just for a handful of people,'' Tom says. "Going to a gallery now is kind of a cool thing to do.

"We are certainly rewarded socially, when we can have over 300 people squashed together and the result is that you get a sense that we do get along a lot better in Bermuda than people think we do.'' Tom has sometimes been warned that the "unprecedented growth'' of art in Bermuda over the past decade will reach a ceiling.

"Artists Up Front!...Street is a measure of faith that there is no such thing as too much art.

"We were once told that Bermuda is a small community and that you can over-saturate the market. We found out that Bermuda is a small community but there is no such thing as too much art. That's like saying to somebody with an insatiable appetite for reading that there are too many books -- you've never heard anybody say there are too many books! "It is true that the resources of an Island of 60,000 people are somewhat finite, but the fact is that those 60,000 are coming out in greater numbers to attend art gallery openings and shows. It is no longer intimidating.'' While most of Tom's time is taken up with fund raising, combing the world for art created in Bermuda to bring back to Masterworks' permanent collection, organising art education programmes and acting as a facilitator for Bermuda's contemporary artists through `Artists Up Front!...Street', he was first an artist himself and one day would like to get back to his roots in photography.

"I wish I had the time for it again,'' he says. "There's an expression that says `when you get ink under your fingers it never leaves', and I think that's true.'' Photo courtesy of the Masterworks Foundation Artists Past and Present: Tom Butterfield asks each artist showcasing their work at `Artists Up Front! ...Street' to contribute a piece of their art to Masterworks. Their art will join the works of acclaimed artists like American George Swanson, whose 1937 unnamed study of a dancer is part of the Masterworks Foundation's permanent collection.

Photo courtesy of Bermuda National Gallery Going Forward: Bermudian sculptor Bill Ming's 1993 sculpture, "Reachin' Back to Go Forward'' is part of the Bermuda National Gallery's permanent collection.

Tom Butterfield