There are two large murals by Nick Sweetman that cover both sides of Bathurst street as it passes under the 401 highway. The murals are a collection of animals – birds, frogs, cows, cats, foxes, bats, tigers, and more. This blogpost is a selection of images from those two walls.
Sometimes there are silver linings when buildings get demolished. Until recently, this wonderful mural was difficult to get a good look at. Now that there is a vacant lot next door I was able to get a much better picture of it.
The title of the mural is “The Original Family” and it is based on an Anishinaabe creation story. The artist, Philip Cote, has been telling Anishinaabe stories through his mural painting for at least twenty years, including a series of images on the concrete supports of a bridge at Old Mill subway station (see Spirit Stories Under Old Mill in this blog).
The Grand Hotel was demolished to make room for a 68 storey skinny tower (on a larger base – i.e. the lower floors will be bigger, podium-like). No facades to save here. Once construction starts on this new building, the mural will become partially obscured again.
This row of old two storey row houses has been vacant for years. Recently the developer that owns the properties provided a couple of Toronto artists the opportunity paint the exterior. This is the result.
If you look carefully, you can see that Nick Sweetman and Luvs (aka Moises) have painted the word CHANGE across the front of the buildings. As a theme for a mural on a redevelopment site in a city bursting at the seams with such sites, change seems very appropriate.
below: I’ve played with the colours a bit to highlight some of the letters. You should be able to see C, H, and A across this image.
But the mural is more than colour and letters. There are three animals featured here – pigeon, raccoon, and coyote – all of which have adapted to changes and now thrive in urban environments.
below: A blue pigeon
below: A pinkish marroonish reddish raccoon
below: A coyote with a dead leaf and new buds.
Funding provided by Streetcar Developments
below: The houses to the north….
Photos taken 25 May 2023
There is a railway bridge over Lawrence Avenue West just to the east of Weston Road (close to Weston UP Station). The walls beside the sidewalk on both sides of the underpass have been painted with street art designs of flowers, birds and animals. The murals are the result of a collaboration between Que Rock and Alex Bacon.
Another Weston mural – Out and About
Another recent Weston blog post – A little piece of Weston
Along a wall beside the playground at 103 and 105 West Lodge is a mural painted by Elicser Elliot and Nick Sweetman a couple of years ago. It’s theme is the outdoors and it includes scenes like kids playing baseball, people reading and sitting outside, as well as people planting gardens. There are also lots of animals – a large dragonfly shows off its wings, bees fly by, squirrels hoard nuts, a robin pulls a pink worm out of the ground, and a very large hedgehog sniffs the flowers.
below: Hedgehog covered with thousands of protective spikes.
below: Playing baseball and keeping an eye on the bees
below: An encounter with a skunk
below: Playing with friends. Great dunk shot!
below: This robin has found very large worm
below: A blue dragonfly with translucent wings
below: A black squirrel and a grey squirrel and thousands of nuts!
The TTC subway tracks cross above the Humber River at Old Mill station. The concrete pillars that support the subway bridge have been covered with many watery blue First Nations themed murals.
below: The artist, Philip Cote, described the story behind this image on the ArtworxTO website (see link); like all cultures, the Anishinaabe have an origin story. In the beginning there was just Spirit. “And that spirit decided to send signals out into the universe and waited for a response. And when no response happened that spirit called the signals back and said, “As you come back to me, create light in the universe”. And at that moment they had light and dark in the universe. And that is the beginning of the Anishinaabe cosmology. Everything for Anishinaabe is made of light and dark. Everything we look at has a spirit, everything, the ground, the rocks, the sand, the trees, the birds, the plants, everything is… and even our sun and our Mother Earth and the moon, they all have a spirit.”
connecting with thousands of galaxies in the universe
The blues of the water, the Humber River, were painted by Kwest. Water is the Underworld in Ahishinaabe cosmology and the Guardians of this Underworld are the fish. Another artist, Jarus aka (Emmanuel Jarus), painted the fish.
Most of the paintings have a well defined circle. This is the boundary between water and earth, between the spirit world and the physical world. But there are connections between the two worlds – all living things are connected and we are all connected to the Spirit World.
These pictures also appear on another blog, Eyes on the Streets
Just south of St. Clair West, Runnymede Road runs under the CP train tracks. In the summer of 2017 the wall on the west side of the underpass a mural was painted by Christopher Ross (aka GAWD). It is a collection of animals, mostly in shades of pink and blue – dragonfly, pigs, birds, and more. Most of the animals are in pairs.
At one end of the mural, this little engine sits on a tree stump.
Back in November, before I went away, a friend and I ventured out to Long Branch because we had heard that there was a new Nick Sweetman mural on 30th street. Just north of Lakeshore Blvd., 30th street passes under the railway tracks. This is where the new mural is. It’s a collaboration with fellow artist Phil Cote and it’s nearly 500 feet long.
below: North of the railway tracks
Photos of the mural, in no particular order:
a butterfly
some turtles
two birds in flight – all of a redwing blackbird and part of a cardinal
a bee on two orange flowers
some fish
a fox, a duck with duckling, and a purple owl
a cute furry animal
… and hiding under the tracks in a place where it’s difficult to take a picture is this large moose (elk?).
Santa Claus Parade 2018
The 114th annual Santa Claus parade filled the streets with lots of fun and excitement.
Floats, clowns, and hundreds of characters in costumes.
And people, lots of people!
And of course, Santa Claus at the end of the parade sitting in his sleigh with toys and Christmas surprises. The star of the parade, the person everyone came to see.
Another year of jack o’lanterns and giant spiders
and other creative spooky and creepy decorations. Clowns and pumpkin heads.
And even bunnies can be fearsome. Bunny with baseball bat.
It’s a time for dressing up in costumes and having fun…. for kids
…. and for adults (night time photos taken on Church street)
below: What’s scarier than Donald Trump? Three Trumps! Thrice the thrills.
Not everyone was scary – look at these cute and cuddly animals!
Smurfs!
Even Marilyn stopped for a picture.
as I walk Toronto 