as I walk Toronto

Many thanks to Sarah Serata who emailed me a few days ago with some photos that she had taken while out walking around the city.  The photos were of some of the graffiti signs that have been appeared in the past couple of years.  She wanted to know if I knew the name of the artist(s) responsible for the signs.  But unfortunately I don’t know the answer.  Instead, I have added a few of my own photos from the past few months and put them all together in this post.  If you can enlighten us as to who has posted these signs, please let us know!

below: Sweet Marie Variety on the corner of Queen and Sumach has been in decline for years.  Now it is also “Too Little” and “Too Late”.

below:“Wish you were here”, Regent Park buildings before they were demolished.

below: “Text”.  Words have always been a part of graffiti.  You see them hastily scrawled in marker or paint, or carefully stenciled on walls, signs, fences, or sidewalks.  Sometimes the text is silly or profane; often it is a protest.  But not usually do you just see the word ‘text’ like this sign that is mounted on the exterior of the old Consumers Gas Office building on Eastern Ave.

below: “Gameover” was seen on the same building as the above.

below: … and so was “Nice” which is a little fancier, and dare I say, nicer?

below: Another “Nice” in blue and white.  All of these signs have obviously been painted/printed elsewhere.  You can’t call them paste-ups because they are more permanent than paper.  This one looks to be nailed to the plywood below it.

below:  The circle within a square motif seen above also appears here – “Brawn” in the grass beside Eastern Avenue.  There was once a similar sign that said “Think” posted nearby.

below: “Untitled” on  River Street.  Does untitled = unowned (as in holding a title on a piece of property)?

below:“True to Form” – the next few are of a similar style and are probably by the same artist(?)

below: “Blood in the Water”

below: The downside of hanging your signs on abandoned buildings is that the weeds and shrubs grow freely there and your message gets lost.

below: Money is no …?  I like that fact that a sign about money is printed in gold on a green background.

below: Previously posted – located on the same row of boarded up houses on Broadview where Moises and Nick Sweetman painted a large mural with a raccoon, pigeon, and others (see Changes at Broadview and Eastern)

below: Around the time that Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, this sign appeared on the old foundry building near the Distillery District.  True, it’s a symbol not a word but the word “Ukraine” was also posted on the same building (and in the same blue and yellow).  I have a photo of it somewhere!

below: The one thing that all of the above signs have in common is that they are in the east end.   So far, I have only found one exception and that is this sign that was hung by the north side of the railway tracks on Front Street (near Bathurst).

below: A final note – as I was putting together this post, I remembered this wall. A few years ago (2014?) if you were on Queen St. East near Church street you could see this wall on the north side beyond a parking lot (now a condo).

If you are interested in words written on walls, try “Positive words are never wrong!