“Master sculptor Dorsey James is a living legend of the Guild of All Arts. He worked at the site, now known as Toronto’s Guild Park & Gardens, for about a decade beginning in the 1970s
To mark Canada Day 2020, Dorsey tells the story of how Rosa and Spencer Clark, founders of the Guild of All Arts, introduced him to that classic Canadian dessert – ice cream and maple syrup!
Dorsey, who was born in the U.S., established himself as a professional wood sculptor in Toronto, thanks to the support of the Clarks.
Rosa and Spencer also gave Dorsey his first taste of maple syrup during a memorable lunch at the Clarks’ Guild Inn.
That experience remains vivid to Dorsey some 40 years later. He shares his two-minute vignette in front of Guild Park’s Sculptor’s Cabin, where Dorsey created hundreds of wood carvings – mostly mythical characters from legends of old.
Look closely behind Dorsey and you’ll see the carved heads of two Norse gods on the wooden cabin. These are Dorsey’s work, made to commemorate the Danish-born sculptor, Aage Madsen, an earlier artist at the Guild. Madsen built that cabin as an artist’s studio in 1940.”
Guildwoodian 