Art is the root of smART scKOOL
Founders Shelley Batcules and Jim Torma believe
"ART is the root of SMART"
"It's scKOOL to be SMART"
Creativity is the basis of an exciting and fulfilling quality of life - both emotionally and intellectually. They have worked towards developing out-of-the-box, alternative ideas, methods and sources for the SMART SCKOOL workshops and courses.
The goal is to emphasize that everyone has creativity in them; it is just a matter of building the security to bring it out and celebrate it! SMART SCKOOL courses are designed to emphasize inclusion of all ages, skills, and economic levels, and promote the cross-pollination of ideas between people experiencing different backgrounds and circumstances.
The founders feel it is very important that people have equal opportunity and accessibility to quality education and entertainment, therefore the SMART SCKOOL is built on a format that makes learning fun and stimulating, while offering the valuable opportunity to spend a higher quality of time with loved ones and ourselves leading to a much higher retention of information rate because of the positive learning climate that has been created. Courses and workshops will be added as they come on-line.
In today’s complex social, political, religious and economic climate, reinvention is of paramount importance. We are dedicated to empowering people by teaching them to view adversity as an opportunity to grow, help get people out of isolation and welcome them into a positive atmosphere with strong community spirit. Being in a place that highlights a “good news attitude” as opposed to the constant “bad news” we face daily in the media inspires people to think more optimistically, embrace their potential and activate their ability to think positively about the future. Positive thinking results in prosperity on all levels.
Our primary goal is the development and implementation of innovative and accessible educational opportunities to help guide people to recognize and utilize the immense power of art, culture and creativity in their life and learn how to nurture the creative process as a major step forward in the development of critical thinking to be used in all areas of life – mentally and physically. Success is measured by a person’s ability to use creative thinking as the power tool for innovation and reinvention in any professional field or personal endeavor.
SHIMJELLY
JIM & SHELLEY
Many people know and refer to us as “SHIMJELLY” as opposed to Jim and Shelley. Based on similar worldviews, personal perspectives, and mutual purpose we created a combined name “SHIMJELLY” (the fusion of Jim and Shelley) to represent each individual personality and our oneness as a couple.
Shelley Batcules and partner Jim (Imre) Torma have been together since 1988, and have worked together to develop many Community arts based initiatives such as smART acKOOL, the St. Joseph's Art as Therapy Program, the AGO Community Outreach Art Group, and many other projects and events.
Many people know and refer to Shelley Batcules and Jim Torma as “SHIMJELLY” as opposed to Jim and Shelley. Based on similar worldviews, personal perspectives, and mutual purpose we created a combined name “SHIMJELLY;” the fusion of Jim and Shelley to represent our individual personalities and our oneness as a couple.
Jim and Shelley believe it is of paramount importance to protect and nurture arts education and to promote an interest and understanding of how critical the arts are in the development of future generations, both physically and psychologically. More details will be shared throughout the website.
SHIMJELLY on Fire is a specialized series of gourmet brands that include gourmet glazes for meats, cheeses and vegetables, wood smoked tasty pastes, hot & sweet jams and jellies, specialty sauces and pesto, infused oils, relishes and pickled products, with future plans to produce Living Food (fermented).
SHIMJELLY on FIRE focuses on small, gourmet, custom batch production with a growing selection and choice for even the most discerning palette. Throughout the year you will be able to enjoy the flavours of tree ripened fruit from Niagara and select items grown in Ontario with a little fire and spice in each jar. The focus is to use fruit and produce with the least amount of sprays, chemicals and weed control. Our ultimate goal in the future is to ensure that each of our jars contains only organically grown product.
SHIMJELLY on Fire recipes are developed and created by Shelley Batcules and Jim Torma, with an emphasis on natural nutritional ingredients and unique recipes that combine biodynamic heirloom crop grown on SHIMJELLY Farm with local Niagara fruits and vegetables. SHIMJELLY on Fire brands focus on taste, quality, nutrition and secret culinary blends that enhance any recipe that involves meat, cheese, vegetables, pasta, rice and bread making SHIMJELLY on Fire a staple in any lifestyle.
SHIMJELLY on Fire can be used in so many creative ways. Use them as a drizzle with Goat cheese, Brie or any of your favourite cheeses and taste the unique flavours melded together. Whether you Barbeque or oven roast your pork tenderloin, chicken, fish or any other meat, brush it when it’s ready to bring out the best in flavour. Don’t eat meat, no problem; glaze your veggies when done in the BBQ or oven. Try it on pizza, nacho chips, burritos, tacos, hamburgers, or mix it with your favourite wing sauce and watch the wings fly out of the bowl as your guests come back for more. Cook your favourite stews, soups, meatloaf, casseroles or roasts with a teaspoon of ShimJelly on fire and your guests will ask for your secret to making such a unique and delicious dish.
SHIMJELLY on Fire is ideally positioned for a powerful market share in the healthy food category including hot sauces, specialty sauces, glazes, tasty pastes, condiments, pickles, preserves and living food sectors. Current market trends of fast-food businesses prove an incredible increase of hot and spicy choices. Major burger and other assorted fast-food chains heavily market hot and spicy choices on a regular basis.
Many health experts have touted the benefits of Cayenne pepper in weight loss, blood pressure regulation, and arthritis relief. Studies from Japan and the US show heart attack patients using Cayenne pepper during cardiac arrest stopped the arrest dead in its tracks.
Both Jim and Shelley grew up in the Niagara Region and as kids worked on farms. Farm work helped to provide the financial fuel for Shelley to attend University in1992 when Jim and Shelley moved to Toronto to invest in an education, work in film and Television, work on land development projects and take in the multitude of life experiences the "Big City" has to offer.
In 2010 we decided it was time to return to our roots to realize a long time dream, which is the SMART SCKOOL HABITAT Concept, an innovative land development concept that focuses on merging farming, business, education, entertainment and the arts with the intention to build a place and space which inspires positive change.
Our strong focus on "Go Local" and "Build Local Economy" is the back bone of a belief that a strong sense of community pride and value inspires important goals to develop new ideas, explore innovative technologies, produce exceptional specialty value-added products to improve health, invent new business models emphasizing collaboration and mutually advantageous services, new educational opportunities to enhance life experiences for every generation and inspire fully rounded perspectives and world views that enhance community and welcome positive change for the future.
SHIMJELLY Farm and SHIMJELLY on Fire are examples of our belief that what we eat needs to maintain the highest standards of quality with optimal nutritional benefits to achieve a healthy lifestyle while having as many culinary choices as possible. Our knowledge of biodynamic farming and the positive impact our crops have on general health is extensive. Our advocacy toward chemical-free, modification free bio-dynamically grown heirloom crops is the primary reason we can deliver many value-added products. Our research is heavily centred on healthy lifestyle trends.
Korean Delegation visits SHIMJELLY FARM
SHIMJELLY believes our food supply needs to be chemical-free, the highest quality, as healthy as possible with many choices. We advocate and modification free crops as the primary reason to grow heirloom crops biodynamically. We have all natural ingredients of the finest quality in our ShimJelly on Fire product line, and it is, low sodium, MSG free, gluten free, nut free and most importantly chemical free.
Wallace Station Lofts at 371 Wallace Ave started life as the four-storey warehouse for the Canadian Glue Stamp Factory, built in 1929, and it’s four coach houses, built for the company in 1949. Located just blocks north of Roncesvalles and slightly south of the Junction.
AGO Art Gallery of Ontario / smART scKOOL Community Access Program
In January 2009 SMART SCKOOL became a Community Access Partner with the AGO, Art Gallery of Ontario, and in 2010 became a full member. This partnership enables participants of the Community Arts Group visit a major art gallery that would otherwise not be possible due to issues surrounding mental health and financial challenges.
Participants have experienced many profound benefits learning art, art history and architecture in such an awesome and inspiring environment. For many people the opportunity to visit the AGO represents their first chance to visit a major art gallery, see the great masters, hear discussions about the history of art and learn how to draw within the gallery setting.
The Therapeutic Impact of the AGO Art Gallery of Ontario
The AGO Community Access Partnership represents a major resource for the public, and for our “ART as Therapy” program. The myriad of changes both large and small that our participants have undergone is profound and the experiences have stimulated them to reach out for much more in their lives.
Mental Health professionals have noted the positive impact SMART SCKOOL Community Art Group has on their clients. It breaks them free from the bonds of isolation, gets them out into the public, gives them a chance to contemplate, and be stimulated by creativity without any pressure to personally produce. The exploration of art develops the skill to see, in turn offering people opportunities to see the world more clearly, see the value in themselves by having a chance to be a part of a prestigious place they would otherwise feel unwelcome or uncomfortable in, and recognize they can change their future that’s different from where they are.
We attend the AGO for more than just recreation. Learning to draw at the AGO is a special opportunity for participants. SMART SCKOOL co-founder Shelley Batcules discusses art history, subject matter, styles, techniques and expressive qualities in each piece while teaching participants to draw. The experience stimulates people to explore latent abilities and be more fearless about embracing their personal creative potential. Special AGO staff members contribute a sense of being welcome and encourage social interaction while we draw.
To Whom It May Concern:
The Art Gallery of Ontario has had the pleasure of working with Jim Torma and Shelley Batcules the co-founders of smART scKOOL. For the past two years Jim and Shelley have been great ambassadors for the AGO, bringing groups of marginalized individuals and mental health survivors to explore our collections and sketch in the galleries. We have been very pleased by the feedback from these visitors, who have taken great time and effort to express the pleasure they get from visiting our art museum and the impact it makes on their lives.
I am certain that most, if not all, of these individuals would never have crossed our threshold if it were not for Jim and Shelley’s gentle guidance and encouragement. Jim and Shelley consistently break down the “shell” that art museums may have for individuals who are struggling in our community and they open up the art museum experience for them to enjoy and learn in. We hope that Jim and Shelley continue to bring their groups to the AGO on a regular basis and introduce all the benefits an art museum can offer to all members of our community.
Beverley Carret Manager, Government and Community Relations, Art Gallery of Ontario
Community Art Group
POV: Points Of View on Poverty: “Two Sides of the Coin & the Great Misconception”
smART scKOOL Community Arts Collective
POV: Points Of View on Poverty: “Two Sides of the Coin & the Great Misconception”
A Community based Art Program presented by Community Action Network - Community Arts Collective, Jim and Shelley co-founders of smART scKOOL and Daily Bread Food Bank fighting Poverty and Homelessness. “POV: Points Of View on Poverty; Two Sides of the Coin” is a community based art program which offers participants opportunities to explore creativity in a safe environment, feel the therapeutic benefits inherent in the act of creation and learn to express their feelings and circumstances using art as language.
People among us who are marginalized by poverty and hunger come from all walks of life. Many speak what we think of as our own language. Despite grammatical, syntactic, and vocabulary similarities, people who are poor are often not heard by those in power, something akin to speaking a different language, from being from ‘somewhere else’. Indeed, many of the folks who rely on food banks were born outside of Canada.
This fact reflects the fact that Canada is a poly-cultural mosaic and although this diversity contributes to the richness of our country it also poses challenges to people trying to acclimatize and adapt to a new home. Newcomers often find it a challenge to fit into the community due to language among other kinds of systemic barriers that prevent them from moving forward in their lives.
The principal goal of the Community Arts Collective is to empower people who are confronting poverty in their own lives by using the visual as their voice to express their personal experiences around their struggles, their stories. This endeavour is undertaken in a safe environment free of the fear of having to verbally speak.
The group will create projects incorporating titles which inform and clarify viewers about contemporary views and attitudes surrounding poverty and homelessness. The creation of the thesis artworks involves the production of two large scale collaborative artworks from two distinct perspectives (the haves and have not’s) which serve as the visual thesis, focal point and catalyst of the art program along with individual pieces of each artist and their final group exhibition.
To whom it may concern;
It gives me great pleasure to write on behalf of the founders of SMART SCKOOL, Mr. Jim Torma and Ms. Shelley Batcules. I have followed with great interest Jim and Shelley’s creative efforts to establish SMART SCKOOL as an alternative educational and business entity. I have specifically followed one of their programs, the Community Art Group which is based on Art, as a form of Therapy. SMART SCKOOL is an alternative basis of assistance and guidance to those who require loving and caring support beyond the present social and mental institutional means provided by today’s society.
SMART SCKOOL has been recognized by the Toronto Police, Art Gallery of Ontario, Trillium etc. as a “cutting edge” center within the community where the city’s marginalized members can seek emotional support and caring assistance via the benefits of art as an educational support based on art therapy.
SMART SCKOOL’s social contributions within the community are numerous. Many of them aim to help the disadvantaged within Toronto’s community. One such endeavour, for example, is the event, which occurs every Thursday night at The Emmanuel Howard Park United Church on Roncesvalles Avenue. Each Thursday evening SMART SCKOOL presents a free program for all in the community to come and participate in art making; reading and discussion and to partake in a four course hot meal cooked by Shelley and Jim thanks to provisions supplied by Peter’s No Frills, local business owners, farmers of Niagara and residents of the High Park/Parkdale area. Respect, moral guidance and art instructions, are offered by Jim and Shelley to help teach struggling individuals how to integrate better into the community.
Another endeavour is the partnership that SMART SCKOOL has with the Art Gallery of Ontario. SMART SCKOOL is a member of the AGO as well as a participant in the AGO’s Community Access Partnership Program. This program, in partnership with the AGO, has helped numerous people come out of their shells and begin their journey toward a new future.
Jim and Shelley’s perseverance to have SMART SCKOOL remain a needed reality within the Toronto community has come at a great personal sacrifice, both financially and time wise. However, their goal has never veered from the prime focus to ensure that SMARTSCKOOL retains a permanent place within the social, educational and business fabric of Toronto. Now SMART SCKOOL is embarking on the next phase of their development, which is the SMART SCKOOL Habitat, a learning centre, a live/work complex, marketplace and a new age form of sustainable free enterprise.
In this context, I highly recommend without reservation SMART SCKOOL, Jim Torma and Shelley Batcules’ vision is truly forward thinking.
Sincerely Yours, Bogomila M. Welsh-Ovcharov Professor Emeritus, History of Art, University of Toronto
SHIMJELLY on Fire is a specialized series of gourmet brands that include gourmet glazes for meats, cheeses and vegetables, wood smoked tasty pastes, hot & sweet jams and jellies, specialty sauces and pesto, infused oils, relishes and pickled products, with future plans to produce Living Food (fermented).
SHIMJELLY on FIRE focuses on small, gourmet, custom batch production with a growing selection and choice for even the most discerning palette. Throughout the year you will be able to enjoy the flavours of tree ripened fruit from Niagara and select items grown in Ontario with a little fire and spice in each jar. The focus is to use fruit and produce with the least amount of sprays, chemicals and weed control. Our ultimate goal in the future is to ensure that each of our jars contains only organically grown product.
SHIMJELLY on Fire recipes are developed and created by Shelley Batcules and Jim Torma, with an emphasis on natural nutritional ingredients and unique recipes that combine biodynamic heirloom crop grown on SHIMJELLY Farm with local Niagara fruits and vegetables. SHIMJELLY on Fire brands focus on taste, quality, nutrition and secret culinary blends that enhance any recipe that involves meat, cheese, vegetables, pasta, rice and bread making SHIMJELLY on Fire a staple in any lifestyle.
SHIMJELLY on Fire can be used in so many creative ways. Use them as a drizzle with Goat cheese, Brie or any of your favourite cheeses and taste the unique flavours melded together. Whether you Barbeque or oven roast your pork tenderloin, chicken, fish or any other meat, brush it when it’s ready to bring out the best in flavour. Don’t eat meat, no problem; glaze your veggies when done in the BBQ or oven. Try it on pizza, nacho chips, burritos, tacos, hamburgers, or mix it with your favourite wing sauce and watch the wings fly out of the bowl as your guests come back for more. Cook your favourite stews, soups, meatloaf, casseroles or roasts with a teaspoon of ShimJelly on fire and your guests will ask for your secret to making such a unique and delicious dish.
SHIMJELLY on Fire is ideally positioned for a powerful market share in the healthy food category including hot sauces, specialty sauces, glazes, tasty pastes, condiments, pickles, preserves and living food sectors. Current market trends of fast-food businesses prove an incredible increase of hot and spicy choices. Major burger and other assorted fast-food chains heavily market hot and spicy choices on a regular basis.
Many health experts have touted the benefits of Cayenne pepper in weight loss, blood pressure regulation, and arthritis relief. Studies from Japan and the US show heart attack patients using Cayenne pepper during cardiac arrest stopped the arrest dead in its tracks.
