as I walk Toronto

St. Patricks pop-up

Posted: October 22, 2021 in galleries, locations
Tags: Andrew Patterson, ArtOnQueen, ArtOnQueenWest, Curtia Wright, images, Jenelle Lewis, Jieun June Kim, outdoor gallery, paintings, peru143, Queen Street West, Show Love TO, St. Patricks Market

The building at St. Patricks Market on Queen Street West is empty but the exterior walls are now a pop-up outdoor gallery. It is part of Art On Queen West. Some of the artwork that is on display:

below: “I See You” By Peru143

below: “Bouquet” by Curtia Wright

below: “The Queen” (representing Queen West) by Andrew Patterson

below: “Pies, para que los quiero si tengo alas para volar?” Or in English: “Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?” by Alejandra Paton

below: “The Reimagining of the Steps” by Jenelle Lewis

below: “Untitled” by Jenelle Lewis

below: “Pizza Night” by Jieun June Kim

more than a pile of skulls

Posted: October 14, 2021 in locations, public art
Tags: art installation, Built on Genocide, CHIPPEWAR, Harbourfront, indigenous, Jay Soule, Luminato Festival, Meryl McMaster, Ontario Square, photography, posters, skulls

There are two public art exhibits now on display at Harbourfront’s Ontario Square. The first is “Built on Genocide” by by Jay Soule aka CHIPPEWAR which is part of this year’s Luminato Festival …. “In the mid-19th century, an estimated 30 to 60 million buffalo roamed the prairies, by the late 1880s, fewer than 300 remained. As the buffalo were slaughtered and the prairie ecosystem decimated, Indigenous peoples were robbed of their foods, lands, and cultures. The buffalo genocide became a genocide of the people” (quote source: Luminato website)

below: The centerpiece is a pile of Buffalo skulls.

below: Surrounding the skulls are posters that highlight and criticize government policies towards First Nations including (Prime Minister) Sir John A. Macdonald and his “Magic Eraser”, i.e. the Indian Act of 1876.

below: The poster on the left references the adoption of First Nations children by non-Native families often referred to as the Sixties Scoop because it reached its peak (most adoptions) in the 1960s. The plight of Indigenous women is the subject of the other poster – the disproportionate number of whom have been murdered or went missing.

There is also a display of large photographs by Meryl McMaster.

below: What Will I Say to the Sky and the Earth II.

below: On the Edge of This Immensity

below: As Immense as the Sky

Me As Happening

Posted: October 13, 2021 in galleries
Tags: Miriam Cahn, paintings, Power Plant Contemporary Art

an exhibit by Miriam Cahn
at the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery

Miriam Cahn (b.1949) is a Swiss artist.

Most of the paintings are of faces or bodies and many of the pieces are sexually explicit, or brutally dark, or both.

The exhibit continues until 2 Jan 2022. More information can be found at the Power Plant website

Future Perfect

Posted: October 12, 2021 in locations, public art
Tags: CONTACT, Contact photography festival, exhibit, Future Perfect, King St. West, Maldives, Metro Hall, Nico Krebs, photo exhibit, photography, Taiyo Onorato

on King Street West

On display by Metro Hall on King Street West are a dozen large images created by Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs. This installation is part of the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival.

The pair took photographs in the Maldives. The fragile environment of these small islands (in the Indian Ocean) is exacerbated by the fact that they are barely above sea level. There are more than 1000 islands that make up the Maldives and 80% are no higher than a meter above sea level. Most are uninhabited.

Onorato and Krebs have manipulated some of the prints with various methods and in doing to “they create quasi-abstract images that inventively describe their perceptions of place. Fusing reality and imagination, their suite of images are powerful fictions that confront undeniable facts. ” (quote source: Scotiabank Contact website).

Hands, Florests, and Minds

Posted: October 8, 2021 in graffiti and street art, locations
Tags: #monicaonthemoon, Boradview Hotel, DOn River, Don Valley, map, maps, Monica on the moon, Monica Wickeler, paste up, Water is Life, wheatpaste, Women Paint Riverside

The crest has been altered to read “Department of Hands, Florests, and Minds”. It comes from an old map that has been used to create a street art installation on the back alley side of the Broadview Hotel at Broadview and Queen Street East. The artist is monicaonthemoon aka Monica Wickeler.

Most of the people were printed on the maps such that the Don River was somewhere on the body. The photos of the people are interesting but so is the history that the maps tell us. The map dates from before the creation of the Port Lands at the mouth of the river. If you look at the body on the right, you can probably find the intersection of Queen Street and King Street just before they cross the river (look for the word ‘Don’). There are no streets south of King Street at the time. Front Street ends at Church. I suspect that all the red dots on the map mean swampy wetlands.

below: This woman stands more to the west. Roncesvalles on one leg and Dufferin on the other.

below: The woman on the right has one foot in Ashbridge’s Bay.

The wall is part of the recent Women Paint Riverside project that was the subject of my last blog post – Water is Life.

Water is Life

Posted: October 7, 2021 in alleys, graffiti and street art, locations
Tags: Broadview, Claire Browne, Currents of Change, Eastend Arts, emily may rose, flowers, Frannie Potts, Girls mural camp, glass, Haenahhh, hello kirsten, Julia Prajza, Kirsten McCrea, lake, Memengwaa Kwe Originals, Merryn, Mo Thunder, Moonlight Murals collective, murals, Native Women in the Arts, paint, Queen East, raccoons, river, Riverside, Scarbrite Collective, spray paint, street art, Sylvie, tap, Victoria Day, water, women, Women Paint, Women Paint Riverside

Women Paint Riverside
“Currents of Change”

below: The faucet is on and water pours into a glass. Interesting lively water, full of colours and patterns in this mural by Kirsten McCrea

below: A large mural by Mo Thunder. Follow the link to her website for more information about the mural – a mother and child lying side by side forming the land as water swirls around them.

below: White flowers on a watery blue background by Julia Prajza

below: Invasive species such as phragmites in the Don Valley, by Merryn

below: Rabbit and deer having to contend with out of control greenery, possibly dog-strangling vine. Phragmites are reeds, those tall perennial grasses that grow very tall.

below: Raccoons frolic in the water and raccoons sit by the shore. Even one raccoon spray painting a rock, naughty raccoon! Mural by Emily May Rose.

below: by Haenahhh. Arms around each other

below: Hands reaching out in a mural by Claire Browne,

below: Victoria Day‘s mural – what looks a bit like a blue water serpent but is actually a dragon flying high above us in the sky.

below: In the pink is written, “A persistent drop of water will wear away the hardest stone.”

below: by Scarbrite Collective (brightening the streets of Scarborough), aka Frannie Potts and Sylvie with help from Memengwaa Kwe Originals aka Caterina.

below: Love not hate. A blue raccoon stealthily walks across a roof above a mural that was painted by participants in this year’s Girls Mural Camp (a three week program in the summer for teenage girls).

below: The other part of the Girls Mural Camp project.

below: by Moonlight Murals Collective

below: Three heads that seem wrapped by a fish, mural by Cedar Eve

below: Eyes closed

below: The Girls Mural Camp 2020 mural is in the same alley.

NOTE: There is also an installation by monicaonthemoon on the back of the Broadview Hotel that is part of this project but I have given it a separate blog post – Hands, Florests, and Minds.

With support from:

Eastend Arts

Women Paint

Native Women in the Arts (NWIA)

Riverside BIA

StreetARToronto

paste platz

Posted: September 24, 2021 in graffiti and street art
Tags: Alan Williamson, Alina Chirila, Anne Milne, Bill_L47, Bruho, City Kitty, crkshnk, graffiti, Jeremy Lynch, jumblefacefoto, las mujeres vampiro, meme, Merlin Boissonneault, paper, paste, paste platz, paste ups, Rako Duarte, rudy, shock G, sketchrat, street art, tbonez, tsmoke, urban ninja squadron, visual noise, wheat paste, wheatpaste

Covering the exterior walls of a small empty building on the corner of Charlotte and Adelaide West is a collection of images. This project, Paste Platz, is the work of Jeremy Lynch. He asked some instagram users (artists, graffiti artists, photographers, etc ) if they wanted to contribute images. He then printed pictures the pictures and created the scene you see below. I haven’t tried to identify which pieces were provided by which artist; instead, I have made a list of the contributors at the bottom of this post along with a link to their instagram pages. If you have been following this blog, you will recognize some of the street art. But a lot of it should be new!

Full disclosure – some of my pictures from my recent “Little Red Trike” series were included. I brought it with me for a little photoshoot.

This site was revisited, and more photos taken, late in November: paste platz revisited

Contributors

Alan Williamson

Alina Chirila

Anna

Anne Milne (aka Colouring Book)

and my instagram page too

Commissioners to the Gardiner

Posted: September 24, 2021 in construction, locations
Tags: bridge, Commissioners Road, construction, cranes, DOn River, fence, Gardiner, Gardiner Expressway, Port Lands, skyline, trucks

more changes, more demolition

From Leslie to Cherry, Commissioners Street runs through the middle of the Port Lands, or at least it used to. The re-making of the mouth of the Don River involves a new waterway that cuts Commissioners into two sections. This blog post is a quick look at the east side.

below: TTC streetcar leaving Leslie Barns at Leslie and Commissioners- celebrating 100 years.

below: There are a lot of cement mixers in the area!

below: Canada Post has a large presence in the area too. A series of images of stamps featuring Canadian birds, such as this black-capped chickadee, decorate the exterior wall of one of their buildings.

below: Portlands Energy Center on the other side of the Shipping Channel. This is natural gas powered electricity generating facility. It also has a steam turbine generator that allows it to make electricity using steam from waste heat.

below: Commissioners Street now ends at Saulter

below: The new bridge has been delivered and sits at the western end of Commissioners, on the other side of the gap. Soon(?) that gap will be part of the new route of the Don River.

below: Looking north on Saulter Street towards Villiers Street. Metal beams from the Gardiner are being lowered to the ground.

below: New utility poles on Saulter, with another view of the Gardiner demolition.

below: Saturday traffic on Villiers. The Lakeshore is closed on the weekends to facilitate the dismantling of the Gardiner. Yes, it does cause traffic issues and confusion!

below: Looking north on Don Roadway from Villiers

below: Some of the concrete bents from the Gardiner still stand as does the curved elevated ramp from the Gardiner to the DVP.

below: An abrupt end

below: Crane demolishing a concrete bent beside the Keating Channel.

below: An older photo from 2015 showing the Gardiner Expressway on the north shore of the Keating Channel with the Lakeshore below. The yellow crane in the image above is close to where the blue barge is in this picture (but on the shore side!). The supports for the Gardiner over the mouth of the Don River are metal (the greenish coloured two on the right side of this photo), not concrete like the others. These metal supports is at the right edge of the photo above.

from 2015, photo of Gardiner along the north shore of the Keating channel

photo taken in 2015

below: When the steel beams are removed, they are first trimmed and cut in half.

below: They are then hauled away to another site where they are cut down even more.

below: Standing in the middle of Lakeshore Blvd and looking west. Remains of the Gardiner.

below: Side view, Lakeshore with remnants of the Gardiner rising up beside. Soon to be gone.

another day, another demolition

Posted: September 21, 2021 in construction, locations
Tags: apartment buildings, Canadian Dry Cleaners, demolition, Eastern Ave., fence, Lower Coxwell, McDonalds, parking meters, Queen St. East, redevelopment, rubble

McDonalds drive-thru with demolition…. yes, I’ll have fries with that.

The demolition hasn’t really started yet but the buildings are empty and the grounds interiors are being cleared out.

below: Sidewalk along Eastern Avenue, looking east towards Lower Coxwell

below: At Lower Coxwell and Eastern there is a gap in the old fence and overgrown bushes that leads to what once was a parking lot. The building in the background is one the ones being torn down.

below: There are some cool old parking meters still standing

below: The old parking lot is behind a row of businesses on Queen East

below: Looking northeast towards Queen East and Coxwell

College – Dundas – Lansdowne

Posted: September 20, 2021 in doors, graffiti and street art, locations
Tags: ads, architecture, Canadian flags, College Street, dolls, doors, Dundas Street, dystopia, graffiti, houses, Junction, Lansdowne, murals, posters, reflections, stickers, stores, streetcar, the Junction, windows

Three streets, College, Dundas, and Lansdowne, form a small triangle in the west end. The following pictures were taken on a summer day a couple of weeks ago when I was walking in and around that triangle.

below: Mural – railway bridge. Just west of here, Dundas crosses a set of tracks – the same line the services Pearson airport and points beyond.

below: Eating Dominos in the doorway

below: Small part of a freaky display of dolls and similar toys along the wood rails surrounding a sidewalk patio

below: More dolls from the same place – what does that do to one’s appetite?

below: Colourful umbrellas cover a makeshift patio on the street

below: New sidewalk on College Street with a large mural in the distance…..

below: Beanstalk mural on the side of the coin laundry on the northeast corner of College and St. Clarens. Maybe that’s Jack at the bottom… 😀

below: Orange house, northwest corner of College and St. Clarens

below: …. and an orange car, an older Porsche convertible, in an alley around the corner.

below: Lost Time

below: Reflections, TTC streetcars and the pope

below: In a convenience store window – get your keys cut here, or buy a mask, but watch out for the five deadly terms used by a woman. Fine? Go ahead!