The Common College of Art’s (CCA) fifth One Hour Masters (OHM) took place at the lovely St Matthew’s Clubhouse courtesy of East End Arts.
It was a collage workshop that aimed to explore change and investigate that which we consider unchangeable. It was attended by 20 people: friends, friends of friends and strangers who ended up becoming friends by the end of the evening
Entrance to St Matthew's Clubhouse with the CCA's trademark posters fixed to the door
The session took place on the 10th of October 2025 and I’m writing this report almost three months later. I’m sitting at the University of Toronto Scarborough, my alma mater, at close to 9:00 pm. I’m alone.
Though with you here now, I’m not alone really. I’m going to take you through what we did during the OHM, I invite you to follow along.
We’re going to build a God together.
You won’t need anything too complicated to build your God. Find yourself some scissors and glue alongside a collection of old magazines, picture books and paper that you wouldn’t mind cutting up and rearranging. On the day of the original Build-A-God workshop, students shuffled into the clubhouse where they were provided safety scissors, glue and over 250 pristine, vintage National geographic magazines to rifle through and cut up.
This is a collage workshop.
It is very important that this is a collage workshop.
Collage forces you to work with what you can find. Any preconceived image you might have of what your creation ought to look like is inevitably challenged and changed by the pictures and ideas you will stumble upon. Don’t bother trying to make your God perfect, they certainly didn’t try to do that when they made you.
To quote John Steinbeck, “… now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.”
Now get yourself comfortable. Put on some music you like. Perhaps invite a few friends to share in this act of creation.
It’ll be like you were there with us on the day. The smell of glue sticks, the sound of scissors and the odd friendly whisper.
This is the atmosphere into which we raise our altars.
As with everything we do at the CCA, this was a pedagogical experiment.
In our last OHM we explored the shifting relationship between trust, space and authority and in this one we continue that conversation.
We consider certain things to be larger than ourselves. We see ourselves acted on, guided by or controlled by forces outside our control. Whether those forces are divine or institutional, we spend our lives trying to put together an identity relative to what we consider to be sacrosanct: The structure of our societies. Our educational systems. The degrees we consider important and the ones we don’t.
What we believe we can and cannot change becomes what can and cannot be changed.
God, for the purpose of this experiment, becomes convenient shorthand for the unchangeable. Building your own God and noticing how different they may be from the Gods of those in the room around you is an incredibly important experience to have. Let us take stock of the pantheon of Gods that we now share the room with. Each student is invited to introduce their God to the group and deliver a small minute-long sermon.
We meet a God of the Ocean, all colour and life and brine.
There is a God of Wildlife with countless eyes poking through trees and bushes.
There is a God of Cars. A God of Communism. A God of Capitalism.
One student raises up their God who holds dominion over body awareness or lack thereof. Another speaks of a God of the inner child.
We end the evening with a God who has perfect and total memory, who remembers everything about everyone. They know everything you’ve done or failed to do.
Look at these Gods in your mind’s eye and look down at the little divinity you’ve put together, wherever you are, whenever you are.
Here I would like to adapt a quote by British author GK Chesterton who once said that “fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.”
This gathering was never supposed to be a conversation about the existence of God, people already know that God exists and also doesn’t. This gathering was to show people that God could be changed.
Everything can be changed.
Another model is always possible. Nothing is written that cannot be rewritten.
Society, like God, in all its grandeur, isn’t an absolute. It is an invitation.
Gratitude:
Thank you to Tyler James Andrews and the entire team over at East End Arts for allowing us to inhabit St Matthew's Clubhouse for an evening. Everything they do is everything we are working towards and we are honoured to consider ourselves a part of their community. A big thank you to all the students who made the time and space to build Gods with us that evening.
Graduates of the fifth One Hour Masters coming up to receive their degrees (Circa October 10th 2025)
