Lofty works of art for gallery owner

Dealer Sandra Ainsley’s Annex home could double as a modern art museum

Sandra Ainsley is the leading dealer of contemporary glass art in Canada. Hers is the only gallery in the country to represent the iconic Dale Chihuly, currently featured in a show at the Royal Ontario Museum and credited with spearheading the development of glass as fine art.

Last month, Ainsley opened her own Chihuly exhibit at her renovated, 6,000-square-foot warehouse gallery space at 100 Sunrise Ave., in North York.

One would expect her home in Toronto’s Annex neighbourhood to be chic and sophisticated — but it surpasses expectation: It looks like the love child of a New York loft and that city’s Museum of Modern Art. Where we lesser mortals would have a kooky cookie jar on the kitchen counter, she has a sculpture that looks like a Picasso which has actually been executed by artist Jamie Davis. Ainsley flippantly calls it “ET.”

J.P. MOCZULSKI PHOTOS FOR THE TORONTO STAR The developer of Sandra Ainsley’s loft was a client. It was serendipitous. “I was in Philly with a friend who lived in a loft above a gallery. I happened to be on the roof overlooking the Benjamin Franklin Bridge and a fellow on the next building asked...

Three statues in the living room that could feel right at home in Stonehenge are by another one of Ainsley’s artists, Thomas Scoon, whose specialty is figures in stone and glass. He lives in New Hampshire and sources the stone from quarry rubble and...

A sculpture of feathers and flowers by Seattle artist Ginny Ruffner. “Everything I own, I bought for a reason — a memory,” Ainsley says. “I lived in a traditional home. I was born in Toronto and grew up in Preston, between Guelph and Kitchener. My best...

These swanlike pods in Ainsley’s living room are by Philip Baldwin and Monica Guggisberg, a nomad team that has been working together since 1980.