King East Design District Life.Style.Fair is a festival celebrating contemporary design.
This year’s event was last Saturday and these are some of the things I saw as I walked King Street East that day:

A section of sidewalk. On it is painted the logo for King East Design District. There are also three lovebot stencil shapes spray painted in white on the sidewalk.

below: Frederick Street painting collaboration, organized by George Brown College School of Design students.

painting a large Mondrian-like painting on the street. A large mat is laid out along Frederick Street and students have marked off squares and rectangles with tape. People are painting the shapes in red, orange, yellow, green and purple.

painting a large Mondrian-like painting on the street. A large mat is laid out along Frederick Street and students have marked off squares and rectangles with tape. People are painting the shapes in red, orange, yellow, green and purple. A young girls is using a small roller to paint purple in this picture

painting a large Mondrian-like painting on the street. A large mat is laid out along Frederick Street and students have marked off squares and rectangles with tape. People are painting the shapes in red, orange, yellow, green and purple. A small boy watches while his mother and a girl paint

painting a large Mondrian-like painting on the street. A large mat is laid out along Frederick Street and students have marked off squares and rectangles with tape. People are painting the shapes in red, orange, yellow, green and purple. Looking down the length of the canvas as it nears completion

below: What do you like about Toronto? This man was writing “Rob Ford” as I took the picture.
In hindsight, maybe I should have written something like “is not the mayor” beside it?
Some of the other things people wrote include, coffee shops, bikes, freedom, trees, TTC and lovebot.

A man with spiky black hair is writing on a board covered with different coloured post it notes.

below: The Beauchamp Art Gallery had strips of dried acrylic paint hanging from the ceiling that you could walk through.

Curtains of long strips of dried acrylic paint in many bright colours hang from the ceiling of an art gallery.

below: Also at the Beauchamp Gallery, artist Mike Hammer was creating a colourful painting consisting of blobs of acrylic paint.  The blobs flattened as additional drops of paint were added on top.  The paint flowed over the edge and created stripes.

an artwork in progress, made of many blobs of acrylic paint. The blobs flatten as other blobs are placed on top of them. The artist Mike Hammer is making this piece (although only his hand is in the picture)

below: Cubeworks studio demo.  Yes, she really does hand twist each Rubiks Cube into the colour pattern needed for the artwork.  This particular picture, of a gnome face, requires 500 cubes.  The algorithms for solving the cube are online so you can teach yourself and become a Rubiks Cube artist!

A woman is getting a rubiks cube ready to add to a picture that she is making using 500 rubiks cubes. The picture, about half done, is on an easel in the window of a store.

below: Painting by Jessica Gorlicky.  The easel spins to make the painting easier.

 

In the immediate foreground, but a little out of focus, is the shoulder and arm of a man taking a picture. The subject of his picture, a woman with long blond hair, is painting a picture of a TTC street car and a Toronto street scene. She is in this picture too.

below: Lovebots to colour

A large lovebot on paper is on a table. Black lines on white paper. It is more than a meter high. There are shapes in the middle and it is designed to be coloured. A hand holding a black sharpie is also in the picture, colouring part of the lovebot

below: Pizza carpets outside and pizza making inside, at the corner of King and Parliament.

A man and a woman are crossing the street. They are close to the sidewalk on the other side of the street. On that sidewalk are a number of carpets that look like wedge shaped pepperoni pizza slices. Each carpet is just over a meter long. They are in front of a shop that sells appliances.

below: The store Relative Space displayed three pieces by Stan Olthuis made from flooring materials that they sell.  This one is called ‘Dance Like No One’s Watching’

Part of the store window for the store Relative Space. The word space is seen in this picture. In the window is a design of a woman's silhouette in light yellowish woods inlaid into grey flooring.

below:  Will Graham and the beginnings of his sidewalk dragon.

A man is creating a dragon drawing in chalk on a sidewalk.

below: And last but not least, we can’t forget   – neon signs by Gary Taxali.  This is one of two that were on display at DOM Interiors.

In sursive writing the words Unforget Me in neon tubing to make a sign that is hanging in a store window.

#kedd2015

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