Shalak Attack and Bruno Smoky have painted another large colourful mural. This one features two women, a baltimore oriole, and many fruits and flowers.
below: Close up of the bird, a baltimore oriole
below: Adorned with leaves, flowers, and fruit – blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries. Lots of cherry blossoms and another bird too.
Sometimes I find myself in unfamiliar territory and so it was last week when I went to investigate some alleys where I’d heard that new murals had been painted. My previous post, Around Wadsworth Park, was part of the same walk; there was just so much to see that I split my photos into two groups. In general, the last post was north of Davenport Avenue while this post features Davenport and the streets & alleys to the south.
below: More raccoons by Emily May Rose, this time they are being watched over by a big white rat. Quite the dumpster fire!
below: A large mural by Birdo beside Charles Sauriol school
below: A man reaching out a multicoloured hand to a woman by Phillip Saunders covers the back part of the house
below: A brown octopus and bright coloured tiger playing together – a collaboration between Luvs and June Kim.
below: Baby birds with beaks uplifted in a mural by Bruno Smoky and Clandestinos
below: Blue jay and tomato face, rowdyradrat and Chris Perez
below: Taking cover under umbrellas on a rainy day in a mural by Elicser Elliott
below: Someone has extra time lying around, but without the coffee
below: Mural in a lane, signature says June, Bacon, and Erika.
below: Part of another June Kim feline
below: A man walks down the alley, between a mural on the right and Quick Recording Studios on the left.
below: In the window of the Art Academy of Canada, Davenport Ave.
below: A.J.’s So Fresh Coin Laundry, also on Davenport
below: A multi-lingual thank you to essential workers on Davenport – obrigado, gracias, merci, and grazie!
below: Boney Santa’s lost a lot of weight recently… he’s probably tired of all the weight gain jokes and comments though…..
below: More Emily May Roses’s mischievous raccoons and their cans of spray paint.
below: Anya Mielniczek’s woman’s face looks down the lane.
below: A closer look of the mural reveals another woman’s head on the far side along with people mixing together in the central portion painted by Raoul
below: HeldbyHuda mural
below: Patterns of circles and semi-circles on a gate by Stephanie Bellefleur
below: Another gate, but half of this one has been removed.
below: A Nick Sweetman painting of a large Cuckoo wasp feeding on a yellow flower
below: by Victoria Day
below: Sections of citrus fruit in glass bowls, by Steam
below: A pink and purple butterfly by Dani Coghlan
below: A floral wallpaper-like design by Tara Dorey
below: A collaboration between Diana Lynn VanderMeulen and Tebby G.
below: Pink flowers by Claire Browne
below: Self explanatory?
below: Planta Muisca mural with an orange snake under a purple night sky.
below: Birds wearing neckties and hanging out together in a mural by Rob Elliott
below: Sometimes while walking in this city during Covid and various lockdowns, even this might do!
below: Remains of a vegetable garden planted along the side of the alley. Portugal peppers once grew here.
below: Stop and smell the flowers
Support for the alley murals was provided by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.
Unfortunately, I have missed a few of the paintings. A complete set of photos can be found on Erika James’s Instagram page. She was one of the organizers of the project.
Some of the murals from this post can also be seen on by worldwide street art blog, Carleton Village murals Toronto 2021
While meandering down Croft Street today I discovered a new mural by Bruno Smoky on a garage. A large reddish face of a man – Neptune, the God of the Sea? It also makes me think of the book, ‘The Old Man and the Sea’.
Two very large swim nearby.
At the corner of Roxton and Harbord, at what was once the New Moon Variety store, there is a large and colourful Clandestinos mural. The store is now Riders Cycle so it is apt that the mural features a large cyclist, a dapper fox with bright red cycling gloves and a wicker basket full of flowers and carrots.
A blue bird at the left flying in front of the garage door.
The window now looks like it protrudes from the wall and is part of the mural.
Like all good cyclists, he has a light on his bike but this light is a miniature person with a powerful flashlight.
buzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Another blue bird in flight, this time at the righthand side of the mural.
On Dundas West, just west of Dufferin, there are two lanes with large murals by clandestinos.
One is the alley to the west of the Lulu Lounge where both sides are covered with fantastic paintings by fiya, shalak, and bruno smoky as well as a few others. I blogged about it just over two years ago and here is the link to the original post, “life as the shadow of vida“. Earlier this week I took another look at it – it’s still looking great and there have been no changes so I didn’t take any photos.
The other alley is nearby but on the north side of Dundas Street. Actually, it’s hardly an alley, more like a driveway which made taking pictures of the whole mural difficult. Also, if you are traveling eastbound on Dundas, you’d miss it. Here are the pictures that I managed to take:
below: I doubt she’s saying that she loves the sunshine THIS MUCH! but I’d like to think she is. That’s certainly what was going through my head for most of the weekend so I’m going to pretend that she agrees with me!… especially since I am writing this as the rain falls outside my window.
But back to those ravens and flamingos that I promised you…..
below: But not everyone’s happy. Witches brewing with ravens and crows nearby. There always seems to be symbolism associated with these large black birds so I went searching for information. Ravens and crows are found throughout most of the northern hemisphere so many diverse cultures have their own mythologies surrounding these birds. The best summary I found was this, “On the negative side, Raven represents the profane, the devil, evil spirits, the trickster and thief, war and destruction, death and doom, the void. Yet in many cultures Raven also represents deep magic, the mystery of the unknown, death and transformation, creation, healing, wisdom, protection, and prophecy. ” (source) We don’t know exactly what Fiya Bruxa, Shalak, and Bruno had in mind when they painted this mural but I doubt that it was something positive – those witches look rather angry and nasty.
below: From the vengeful looking faces above to these hopelessly romantic flamingos is just a matter of a few steps along College Street. They’re the center part of a larger mural by Katia Engell.
There are 4 flamingos altogether and they are in between two other murals.
In the picture below you can just see the yellow of an alphabet mural by runt
below: Too many things in the way makes for an awkward photo but you can still see enough of it to play the game of what creature goes with what letter! R is for robot dog? Z is for zlithering thingy with rings?
below: J is for jumping purple blob? C is for coughing-up- dinnersaurus?
And look, an alley to explore……
Wait! Before going down the alley I want to take a few steps backwards. Remember that I mentioned that the flamingos were between two murals? This is what is on the other side…..
below: Three cowboys in a mural signed by J Bizzel 4 Shizzel.
The one with his shirt off is the one under the air conditioner.
below: This strange but happy fellow was waiting in the alley.
below: If you look closely at this painting, you will notice that the wavy lines continue behind the bars of the railing and that there is only a small distance between the railing and the wall. That was not a simple paint job.
below: ‘Such a fool’ and someone to agree with it.
below: I’m not too sure what to say about this one. Vermut? or Vermouth? Too much vermouth and you take your clothes off, versmut? Bad joke.
That’s the end of our little tour.
Find a sunny spot and pull up a chair and rest your feet for a few minutes.
Tomorrow there will be puddles to go splashing through…
but that’s a story for another day.
This blog post is a continuation of the ‘love letters in paint’ post. I decided to give two of the larger murals a separate post.
First, there is an awesome mural painted by Bruno Smoky and Clandestinos that stretches across the back of a building on Rebecca Street (one block north of Queen St. West). It too is part of the Love Letters to the Great Lakes project.
And second, in an alley just east of Ossington, is a mural painted on bright turquoise that is hard to miss! Actually it is a series of murals that covers the back of more than one building. It is another birdo collaboration, this time with Christopher Konecki.
#seawallsTO | #loveletterprojects | #pangeaseed
below: “Stop and we’ll build” in Bloordale Village, an area along Bloor St. West between Dufferin St. and Lansdowne Ave.
Last Saturday was Bloordale’s third annual community garage sale and laneway crawl. Many front yards were full of items for sale. A couple of families were selling homemade food and there was at least one lemonade stand.
I walked the area fairly early in the morning so many of the activities were just getting set up. There were things to do and games to play in the alleys and in Susan Tibaldi park. I have blogged previously about this area so last Saturday I only took pictures of things that were new. There weren’t very many changes in the alleys.
below: We are Starlight, we are golden…. **
below: … and it seems that we were all born in outer space. Lovebot and some friends.
Along the side of a building on Jenet Ave I found a large mural of three faces painted by Shalak, Fiya and Bruno Smoky. It faces a parking lot and there were cars in the way. I took some photos anyhow; I think you should be able to see the faces reasonably well.
below: Two women, the one on the left was painted by Shalak while the one on the right is by Fiya.
below: The mustached man and his fish was painted by Bruno Smoky.
below: Remnants of old Rob Ford graffiti still remain around the city including this doorway.
below: This building on Brock Street on has been empty for years.
below: The front of 668 Brock Ave with its Salvation Army ghost sign. In 1921 it was home to the Brock Avenue People’s Mission while next door at 666 Brock Ave., the Number 16 Corps of the Salvation Army was stationed. Its history since then is still a mystery to me.
below: At the not so picturesque corner of Lansdowne and Paton Rd., I found a metal fence. A sign on it says that it is the ‘Lansdowne Fence Temporary Artwork’ by artists Scott Eunson and Marianne Lovink, commissioned by the TTC in 2010. But why is the TTC involved with this vacant lot?
below: And as you can see, it’s a large lot. As it turns out, this was the site of the TTC Lansdowne Carhouse up until 1996. Although the carhouse was classified as a heritage building, it was demolished in 2003. The land has been vacant ever since.
below: Lansdowne carhouse, 1996, photo credit: Robert Lubinksi, TTC collection, found online.
below: A new mural has been painted on the side of the South Indian Dosa Mahal restaurant at the corner of Emerson and Bloor. It is the creation of SPUD and his team with the support of StreetARToronto and the Bloordale BIA. It’s probably the biggest tiger cub in Toronto!
below: Dasdardly Whiplash in his latest role as a graffiti artist near Lansdowne subway station.
below: Small places of worship are scattered all over the city. Many are in buildings once used for other purposes, including (by the looks of it) this one, the Belarusan Autocephalous Orthodox Church, Parish of St. Kiryla of Turau. Trivia #1 of the day: autocephalous is “self-headed” and in this context refers to a church whose bishop does not report to any higher-ranking bishop. Trivia #2: St. Kiryla (c.1130 – 1182) was an eloquent and poetic preacher in Turau which is south of Minsk and east of Warsaw. And on that note I will move on before I end up writing a treatise on Eastern Orthodox religions.
below: Not your average patio!
And last, let’s finish with a splash of bright summer sunshine!
** yes, I know I’ve misquoted
Sackville Street, just south of Dundas, is right in the midst of the Regent Park renewal project. It is also the site of two murals. First, there is bright and colourful mural which is painted on the side of a new apartment building.
The other mural is a painting by elicser on hoardings around a building under construction.
below: With the ubiquitous Timmie’s cup on the ground.
as I walk Toronto 