as I walk Toronto

piles

Posted: October 13, 2013 in events
Tags: ai weiwei, art, bell trinity square, bicycles, chairs, city hall, metropolitan united church, nathan phillips square, nuit blanche, Pascale Marthine Tayou, plastic bags, squirrel, Tadashi Kawamata, Toronto

Piles of chairs, piles of bicycles and piles of plastic bags. That is the best way to summarize three of the Nuit Blanche installations that remained on display for a week or so after the 5th of October.

…

First, the pile of chairs

Garden Tower, by Tadashi Kawamata of Hokkaido Japan

in front of Metropolitan United Church

“As if each person who sat on these chairs left a piece of himself, the work evokes the beautiful and utopian spects of the myth of the Babel Tower, a humanity speaking with one voice and engaged, with solidarity, in the building of a better future.” (from the sign accompanying the installation)

a large pile of chairs sits in front of a church

Garden Tower chairs in front of Metropolitan United Church on Queen Street East.

A hollow pile of chairs about thirty feet high. The photo is taken from inside the pile. The sky can be seen in the photo.

Looking upward from inside the pile of chairs. There was a pathway that ran through the base of the tower.

A squirrel sits on the bottom of a red and white striped chair that is upside down.

new found habitat for one of Toronto’s four legged residents

…

Then the pile of bicycles:

Forever Bicycles by Ai Weiwei at Nathan Phillips Square

Part of the curved walls of city hall are in the background and part of a number of bicycles is in the foreground.

bicycles in front of city hall

A woman wearing a green sweater and a bicycle helmet is standing in the middle of a pile of more than 3000 bicycles. She also has her own bike with her.

one bike amongst many

Nathan Phillips Square on a grey and foggy morning. There are a few people in the square who are looking at the large art installation that involves a structure made from more than 3000 bicycles

Nathan Phillips Square on the wet and foggy morning after Nuit Blanche.

…

Last, the pile of plastic bags:

Plastic Bags by Pascale Marthine Tayou of Cameroon

interior, Bell Trinity Square

The interior of a large office building. A group of men are standing and talking under a large collection of red, white, green and yellow plastic bags.

The plastic bags hang from the ceiling like a big blob. Like confetti, or bits of coloured paper, ready to be dropped on the people below.

Nuit Blanche 2013

Posted: October 9, 2013 in events
Tags: 401 Richmond St., ai weiwei, bikes, bones, city hall, CN Tower, crowds, George Walker, graffiti, honey, installations, leg, lights, nathan phillips square, nuit blanche, painting, people, phones, photography, pics, posters, prints, spheres, street art, Toronto

Saturday, 5th October

downtown Toronto

This is only a small selection of the art installations and exhibitions that were on display that night.

part of an art installation where there are small bones hanging from the ceiling, A man's leg is in the background

Bones, leg bones? Part of the ‘Indicator’ installation at Gareth Bate Art Projects, 401 Richmond St.
“Birds, bats, bees. Indicator species tell us when ecosystems are in peril. Bones, sugar, dripping honey – a meditation on catastrophe and connection.” The bones hung from the ceiling and the honey dripped down the walls.
Artists: Karen Abel, Jessica Marion Barr, Gareth Bate

A man looking at a series of small black & white prints in an art gallery

A timeline of the life of Conrad Black in black & white woodcut prints as shown at a gallery at 401 Richmond Street. Artist, George Walker

silhouettes of some people, on glowing pink and blue spheres

silhouettes
at Much Music, Queen Street West

The CN tower, with pink and blue lights, is in the background. In the foreground are people taking pictures with their phones. In the middle ground are a number of pink and blue lit spheres

phones lifted skyward

A woman is taking a picture of an art installation that is flat on a table. Twelve black & white framed prints are on the wall behind her.

Black & white art made using electric currents & little wires that spun in circles.
401 Richmond Street

An art installation featuring pictures of bicylces. Multicoloured.

bkies, bikes, bikes

A man is spray painting a piece of street art using aerosol cans of paint

spraying in the spotlight
On Dundas West near Beverley Street

Crowds, at night. Light is provided by fluorescent lights that spell out a short poem.

‘The rose is without why’ by Boris Achour.
This is a short poem written by Johannes Scheffler aka Angelus Silesius, in the 17th century. The words are written with fluorescent lights and is more than 300 feet long. It was bright enough to light up the square.

crowds at Nathan Phillips Square on the night of Nuit Blanche. Some people are standing on the upper level watching the crowds below.

upper level, Nathan Phillips Square

Nathan Phillips Square

Nathan Phillips Square
On the left – ‘Forever Bicycles’ sculpture by Ai Weiwei lit in pink and purple. There are 3144 bicycles.
On the right – ‘Crash Cars’ by Alain Declercq consists of two driverless cars.

posing
These metallic figures were not part of Nuit Blanche. They are part of a sculpture close to the Court House on University Ave., just north of Queen St. West.

St. Andrews Bendale

Posted: October 4, 2013 in history
Tags: cemetery, church, history, McCowan, memorials, old, photographs, photos, Presbyterian, Scarborough, St. Andrews, Thomson, tombstones, Toronto, West Highland Creek

St. Andrews Bendale, Presbyterian church and cemetery, are located in a quiet corner of Scarborough, east of McCowan Avenue and north of Lawrence Avenue. The property backs onto Thomson Memorial Park which in turn follows the West Highland Creek.

The acre of land for the church was donated by David Thomson and the original wood church was built here in 1818. It was the first Presbyterian church built in what is now Toronto. David Thomson had arrived in the area from Scotland in 1796 at which time he was granted 400 acres of land. David was soon followed by his brothers Andrew Thomson and Archibald Thomson who settled nearby. The area became known as the Thomson Settlement.

A large memorial in a cemetery. The memorial consists of three tombstones that have been attached to a large concrete structure that looks like a tombstone

Thomson burial plot. The inscription across the top reads “1796 – To their honor who redeemed this township from the wilderness – 1921”
The three plaques (stones) are for David Thomson, Mary Thomson and Hellen Thomson.On the left: “In Memory of David Thomas of Westerkirk Dumfries-shire Scotland who was the First Settler in Scarborough where his was the first land cleared. He had arrived in Upper Canada in 1796 and died on the 22nd June 1834, aged ?, leaving his wife, eleven children and 53 grandchildren.”
Center: “In Memory of Mary Thomson, Mother of Scarborough, who died the 8th of Nov 18–? aged 80 years….”
On the right is the stone for Hellen Thomson. It is very worn and is difficult to read.

Robert Rae and Agnes Hamilton "natives of Lesmahago Scotland who came to Scarboro in 1832. Three weeks after their arrival, in his 29th year, he was killed by a falling tree :: his wife survived him 46 years, dying in 1878 - in her (86?)th year."

Robert Rae and his wife Agnes Hamilton
“natives of Lesmahago Scotland who came to Scarboro in 1832. Three weeks after their arrival, in his 29th year, he was killed by a falling tree :: his wife survived him 46 years, dying in 1878 – in her (86?)th year.”To the left of the Rae/Hamilton memorial is a smaller tombstone for Margaret Rae (d. 1860), wife of Amos Thomson.

To the right of the Rae/Hamilton memorial is a tombstone for James McCowan and Margaret Porteous. This couple also came from Lesmahago Lanarkshire Scotland and they too were one of the pioneering families of Scarborough.

There are a large number of other old Scarborough families represented in this cemetery – Gibson, Muir, Young and Stobo to name a few.

uber Pizza Pizza

Posted: October 4, 2013 in graffiti and street art, Uncategorized
Tags: chickens, intersection, Kingston Rd., mural, octopus, pizza pizza, street art, Toronto, uber, uber5000, urban

I had seen pictures of the mural painted earlier this year by Uber 5000 on the Pizza Pizza outlet at Victoria Park & Kingston Road. Yesterday I found myself in that neighbourhood so I stopped to take a couple of photos too. The afternoon sun made for some strong shadows along the west side of the building.

A Pizza Pizza store at the northeast corner of an intersectoin has been painted with a large, colourful mural. All possible surfaces have been painted.

on the northeast corner of Kingston Road and Victoria Park Avenue

When I was looking online to find out more information about this mural, I discovered that Uber 5000 has a blog too. If you are interested in his work, take a look at his website.

part of the mural by uber 5000 showing three uber chickens sitting on tree branches. This part of the mural is on the second storey and it includes the awning over a couple of windows.

up in the trees on a sunny day

Part of the mural. Chickens are reading newspapers.

Chickens chilling out on the west side of the building.

A giant green octopus covers most of the back of the two storey building including the heating vents.

A very happy octopus covers most of the north side of the building – great pairing of the air vents and octopus tentacles.

A giant green octopus covers most of the back of the two storey building.

happily playing in the water

alley detour

Posted: October 1, 2013 in graffiti and street art
Tags: CN Tower, doors, garages, graffiti, great wall of China, hi buddy, mural, my spot, poles, Toronto, words

Late last week a friend and I were walking to the Kensington area to take some pictures. We almost didn’t get there because we were distracted by a number of small alleys along the way. This is a small sample of what we saw that day.

A mural of the Great Wall of China has been painted on the side of a building. There is a hydro pole in front of it with a sign that says no dumping.

shadows on the Great Wall of China

Never lose your dinosaur

Black wall with a robot and heart sticker. Someone has written the words, what's real? what's not?on the wall as well

robot love – is it real?

A line of robot stickers on a short yellow pole in an alley

I guess one could make jokes about pole dancing robots.

buildings in an alley that have graffiti on them. the CN Tower is in the background

in front of the CN tower

crsy tag on an old grey wood garage in an alley

on a grey and weathered wall

two storey building painted grey and purple. The stairwell to the upper level is open. It is painted purple. There is an old chair on the landing.

purple entrance in the alley

graffiti image of a naked woman who is wearing an Indian feather headdress

loitering while wearing nothing except a few feathers

Concrete block wall with the words blue, blue, blue written on it. The sky behind is very blue.

Blue, very blue

A wall and door have been painted a maroon colour. Someone has written the words Hi Buddy on the door. There is a light fixture over the door but it is broken.

Hi Buddy on maroon

Black and white graffiti that says my spot

Please find your own.

havenbrook

Posted: September 18, 2013 in graffiti and street art, locations
Tags: 401, bridge, concrete, DOn River, face, graffiti, Havenbrook Park, mud, paw prints, raccoon, stencil, Toronto

I ventured north today, north of the 401….. to Havenbrook Park which is just far enough north to access the bridge under the 401 just east of Leslie Street. I went there because I had heard that some interesting graffiti could be found under the bridge. As you can see, someone beat me to it. It’s all gone, all cleaned up.

There is a small, and boring, amount of graffiti across the river and up the hill. If I also wanted to climb the fence, I could access a bit more graffiti. My cane was handy for managing the incline down to the river but that was the limit of my adventuring for today.

Having said that, there was this one piece of graffiti:

The graffiti had been cleaned up and so had the surroundings. It was probably the cleanest of the bridges that I have been under in Toronto. I saw rocks, dirt, water, paw prints and not much else.

polar bears

Posted: September 13, 2013 in events
Tags: cold, New Years day, Polar Bear, Polar Bear Dip, Sunnyside Park, swim, Toronto, winter

Since my walking is still limited and I have time on my hands, I have been sorting and editing older photos.

Back on New Years day I went to Sunnyside Park to watch the annual Polar Bear Dip. Some of the photos that I took that day are now at: http://www.asiwalktoronto.com/lightbox_polar.html

my still life

Posted: September 8, 2013 in Uncategorized

pills and a hospital ID tag sitting on a table.

My Still Life

Your choice – meniscus, PCL or just “soft tissue injury of the knee”. The results are all the same – limited mobility.

That’s my life at the moment, my still life.

looking through the railing of a balcony towards other apartments and their balconies

I’ve titled this photo “Behind bars – how I feel”. You can subtitle it as ‘A bit of silliness to make me smile as the lack of walking is starting to get me down.’

Tower Automotive Building

Posted: September 2, 2013 in graffiti and street art, locations
Tags: 1988, blue face, brick, eyeless, faccio sempre la brava, face, fence, girl, graffiti, heritage, industrial, Junction, Loopy Le Loop, Looter, lsd, street art, tags, the Junction, Toronto, Tower Automotive, vacant lot, wall, watering can

Standing alone in a vacant lot on Sterling Road is the Tower Automotive Building. It was built by Northern Aluminium in 1920 and at some point became the property of Tower Automotive who used the site to build car parts. In 2005 it was declared a heritage building but it was closed shortly thereafter when the company declared bankruptcy.

The ten storey Tower Automotive bulding. In the foreground is the land left vacant after the demolition of the sheet casting machining buildings in 2010.

The ten storey Tower Automotive building. In the foreground is the land left vacant after the demolition of the sheet casting machining buildings in 2010.

Looking up the spine of the building. North side of Tower Automotive.

walking along the west wall

Faccio Sempre la Brava, translate from the Italian as I always do the good.

Faccio Sempre la Brava, translates from the Italian as, I always do the good.

Loopy Le Loop with tags

two wire gates. One has a sign on it that says 'protected by' but the name of the company is obscured by a tag

ungated

interior, doors

When I was researching this building, I found a site that has a collection of great photos of the interior of the building that were taken in May of this year:

jermalism.blogspot.ca/2013/05/abandonment-issues-tower-automotive.html

__________________________________

Art Spin

Posted: September 2, 2013 in events, galleries
Tags: art, Art Spin, brick, Caroline Larsen, Celia Neubauer, concrete, gallery, green door, heritage, industrial, Jinny Yu, John Oswald, Lois Schklar, Mary Grisey, Michael Toke, Noel Middleton, projections, sculpture, Stillnessence, Toronto, Tower Automotive, visual, Vuk Dragojevic, wire

Fourth Annual Art Spin Exhibition,
Tower Automotive Building, 158 Sterling Rd.,
Aug 29 – Sept 1, 2013

18 artists, one old vacant heritage industrial building.

Interesting lighting. Interesting use of the space. Interesting relationships between the installations and their surroundings.

I have not included photos of all the art in the exhibit. My apologies to the artists whose work I haven’t shown.

looking at ‘Sound the Alarm’ by Caroline Larsen’ with the video installation ‘I,I,I,I’ in the foreground

‘We Are Happy’ by Michael Toke. Like a visit to the dentist’s office.

a group of people looking at a piece of art. They are in a large open space that once was a factory. Concrete and brick walls.

The painting on the wall to the left is ‘Exit Enter’ by Celia Neubauer.

‘Sterling Caer Observer’ by Noel Middleton

A sculpture that is composed of three tall vertical pieces of shiny metal. A yellowish brick wall is in the background.

‘Untitled’ by Jinny Yu. Three shaped pieces of metal by brick wall.

artist: Mary Grisey

‘Floating in the Eye of the Storm’ by Lois Schklar.

wire sculpture

‘Stillnessence Vivarium’ by John Oswald.

This installation lent itself to a many interpretations.

more information about Art Spin http://www.artspin.ca

The video installation ‘Melting Bricks’ was in small room where it was shown fairly high up on the wall. It was the only source of light in the room. I focused on the relationship between the room and the light when I was taking pictures of it. (my apologies to the artist as I seem to have forgotten his/her name).

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as I walk Toronto

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