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.
below: People walking on Queen Street West. Do you think that they realize that a large yellow eye is watching them from behind? This is the eye of a very large painting of a cat, probably a Japanese cat.
The mural, the JapanTown mural on the side of the Sanko Trading Company, has been re-painted. The previous mural dates from 2013/4. A blog post with photos of what that looked like in 2015 is at: Sanko Wall. This blog post should give you an idea what it looks like now.
The group of artists (‘The Summit’) who painted the mural also made a video for youtube: The JapanTown Project No. 5
Back in 2017 I visited this lane for the first time and I added some photos from that visit on this blog (see Paul Estrela Lane.). Most of the street art that I saw then is still there. Some of it has been overgrown like the mural below. In a month or two some of these waves will be hidden behind greenery.
below: Mural by Caitlin Taguibao, Pre-pupa moment painted in 2018.
below: Another older mural that natures seems to want to cover up. This one is the work of Kim Therese Dolan.
below: Winter vines on painted particle board.
below: Icey icicles on a March morning
below: Many coloured goofy faces with impressive teeth and googly eyes. A whimsical work by Monica on the Moon (aka Monica Wickeler).
below: Kanos, a French artist, from Paris. More of his work can be seen under ikanografik on instagram.
below: More red, this time from Mediah
below: Red 9 and Parlor 23 in the shadows.
below: Peeling teal paint on weathered wood.
below: Heidi Berton,
below: Children eating ice cream beside a hot summer sun.
below: A blue man and his cat by a mystery man, Victorful.
below: More wood textures.
… as well as vines and shadows….
…. and one last view of the alley
below: A new TTC streetcar on a Toronto street, a mural by Colin Tea
below: Another Colin Tea mural, a larger than life raccoon looms over a city neighbourhood
below: CN Tower and Toronto skyline on a very blue sky
below: A Tokyo Meow
below: Lovebot and the city beside a woman in square glasses and black flats.
below: Two faces, one in better shape than the other
below: Another drawing paste-up that is peeling around the edges. They are rather intriguing and I wish that I had seen them when they were whole.
below: T-bonez as the boy wonder, Urban Ninja Squadron
below: T-bonez with Timmy Drift
below: Horny and green with big white teeth
below: Email God – church’s closed, 2021
below: You are not your mistakes
Just a small collection of some of the graffiti, and related, that I have seen lately.
below: A on top and B below. A = Alvin the Chipmunk as Aladdin. B = Bugs Bunny as Bullwinkle eating a banana.
below: Street art by Mike Salisbury, “Out of Time” red emergency phone.
below: Between the Madness Festival and the Hitler poster, a four line poem from “The Hawaiian healing program Ho’oponopono”. It’s a real thing apparently and perhaps I’m forgiven, thanked and loved.
below: Some friendly ghostly figures in time for Christmas.
below: Some black on white faces and a streetadventures sticker
below: Danger due to resisting.
below: Life jackets required because of a water hazard danger.
Parler23 is actually Parler Sneaker Company so this is probably part of an ad campaign.
I like the camera part but I’m willing to prove the “no fun” part wrong. The other day I went meandering with a friend. We started near Christie station (at a coffee shop of course) with no particular destination in mind. Generally south was the consensus… and with a pinch of playfulness (forget that no fun nonsense!) and a dash of distraction that’s more or less what we did.
below: As you may know, Bloor Street east of Christie is Koreatown with lots of Korean restauants and tea shops.
below: … including cheese tea. This seems to be a new trend, or at least new to me! Apparently it is black or green tea with a foamy topping made from cream cheese, sugar, and whipping cream (or variations thereof). Next time I may indulge.
below: “Imagine your Korea” mural on the side of P.A.T. Central, a large Korean store.
below: A fire breathing dragon and many scared people trying to run away. It’s a pity about the garbage though.
below: By Bathurst street the Korean restaurants have disappeared. Once upon a time (it seems so long ago!) Honest Ed’s dominated the SW corner of Bloor and Bathurst. Now there is just hole there, and a very big hole at that.
below: This picture is just a small part of “Utopic Isles, Neon Nights, a Flowery Future”, which consists of three panels of images by grade 11 and 12 visual arts students from Central Tech high school. They are part of the hoardings around the construction site here.
below: Another section of hoardings feature collages of old pictures of Honest Eds – a project by Jessica Thalmann called “To Dwell is to Leave Traces”
below: To try gluing pictures on hoardings is also to leave traces! Its’ another “no fun” find. All rather cool until you learn that no fun is a branding thingy. Stickers as promos for businesses are now very common, posters like this on, not so much.
below: Construction makes room for the two buildings on Bathurst that refused to sell to the developers. You can still see the ghost sign on one of the buildings – baby carriages repaired
below: Looking west from Bathurst Street across the big hole to the backs of the houses on Markham Street that are empty and boarded up. Some of them will be retained in the new development.
below: A concrete lovebot hides in the corner. He’s missing an arm and has three bricks instead of a leg.
below: Near lovebot is another ghost sign – Coca Cola, sold everywhere (Bathurst Street)
below: This frog has four points on his crown and lips made of plaster. Looks like he’s found a home on top of the garbage pin.
below: ‘Keep hustlin!” Don’t linger and watch out for cars. I was going to make some comment about Toronto becoming increasingly dangerous for pedestrians but I decided that I needed some documentation to back me up. I learned the acronym KSI (killed or seriously injured). Toronto has the research on the KSI stats for 2005-2018 as part of their Vision Zero plan and the results are “mixed”, i.e. the trend isn’t upwards. In fact, I don’t think there is a trend of any sort.
below: [Can we stand two social issues in a row? LOL.] What I didn’t realize was there was a “worldwide “Nobody Pays” call to action on November 29 for fare evasions” (source). Chile in the poster is a reference to Chilean high school students protesting transit fare increases with a series of mass evasions starting on the 7th of October. I don’t recommend burning your Presto card just yet.
below: The very small print at the bottom of the poster gives references to two documents (from 2012 and 2014) that outline the funding of the TTC and where the money comes from.
below: Well it is December after all…..
below: Well it is December after all…..
below: Conversation on a garage door.
below: Sometimes Mother Nature endures. There was no stopping this tree and it seems to have thrived even with the metal of the fence embedded in it.
below: The omnipotent metal fence strikes again. This time flamingos in love and an Al Runt mural are in danger.
below: Continuation of the mural by Al Runt around the corner of the building
below: This mural has suffered a different fate, that of the creeping billboard posters. As much fun as “procaffeinating” is fun to read about, I’ve seen more than enough of them around the city. I’m not sure that it was someone’s sense of humour that resulted in Holt Renfrew posters being displayed beside those for Pathways to Education that play on poverty and lack of education.
below: But…. [one day I will do a post where only the words in the photos do the talking. There are some great stories out there]
below: I especially like this one, Just Keep Going.
below: A white horse in an alley
below: As well as two little astronauts.
below: Blood and bandages barber shop. Wonderful name!
When you walk across College Street in this area you can’t help but notice that you’re in Little Italy.
below: As we walked westward along College Street, we saw three of these blue areas painted on the NW corners (of Roxton, Ossington & Dovercourt)
These are the Blue Room, by Stanislav Jurkovic and they were supported by the College Promenade BIA. From the website: “Similar to a 3 dimensional ‘green screen’ in film production, the space becomes stage and canvas.” It has also won a Toronto Urban Design Award. Some photos that people have taken of these spaces can be seen on instagram by searching on #blueroomcollege (although the same photos are fed to the Blue Room website that I linked to in the first sentence).
below: In the entrance way to a store that sells a lot of things including DVD’s in Little Italy. The 4 moschettieri – the 4 muskateers! A film from 1962 with Georges Riviere as d’Artagnan (the wonder of Google!). At the bottom of the photo is the name Salvatore Samperi; I am not sure which film it is for but Samperi (1943-2009) was an Italian film director & writer. I find it intriguing that these old posters are still on this wall, torn and discoloured as they are.
below: Same store. Italian movies on DVD’s for sale. ‘Maruzzella’ (in English, ‘The Mermaid of Naples’) came out in 1956. If you are an aficionado of old Italian movies, be quick, as I think this store is having a going out of business sale.
I’ll leave you with an image that I found online, a full copy of the poster that is partially covered up above – for the R rated film Malicious/Malizia in 1973. (photo source) That’s 40+ years ago. You see, when you start wandering you start finding all kinds of strange and fascinating things – no fun? indeed not.
I went back to Craven Road this morning to see if anything had changed. The last time I blogged about this street was in November 2016. As with many things in life, some things have changed while other things remain the same. A quick tour of the street …..
below: Some of the cat paintings are there still.
below: These two paintings have been here since at least 2015 although the vines have started to grow over them. Once the leaves reappear (soon), the paintings won’t be quite so visible.
below: The sheep painting by Christine Kowal is still there
below: On the other side of the fence, backyards on Ashdale.
below: There is still a section of the fence that has been decorated with found objects.
below: Parking for pirates only. It was five past twelve when I took this picture so either it’s a functional clock or I happened past at a very fortuitous time.
below: A creepy doll and boots to watch you.
below: A faded bunny from days gone by, holding a little watering can perhaps to water the metallic leaves?
below: Part of a collection of found objects in front of a house. The gallery has expanded!
below: Today I met Johnny, the King of Craven Road. He mentioned that he appears in a video about Craven Road so I looked it up (on Vimeo, “Craven Road – Director’s Cut). The video was made five years ago which pre-dates the collection of objects that he’s standing in front of in the photo. If you watch the video, you will see some of the cat, and other, paintings.
below: A door knocker beside a front door.
below: One of the older houses on the street being renovated.
below: Grass and dandelions in their own little enclosure.
below: Red and yellow tulips in a small front yard that the fence is having trouble containing.
below: Geraniums in the planters on the fence
The weather’s been all over the place, warm, cold, hot, cold again, back and forth…. like May weather usually is. We were fortunate to have great weather this past holiday Monday and a lot of people took advantage of the day! As I walked around, this is some of what I saw.
It’s early April and we’re all tired of winter but it lingers on. How are you coping? Yes, you!
below: Is this wishful thinking? or maybe just a little too optimistic?
below: Spring is in the air? They forgot the question mark. Is the cat reacting to the disconnect between the sign and the reality? … or maybe its expression is because it’s just realized that it’s sitting beside a book about Justin Trudeau?
These were the only signs of spring that I saw yesterday as I walked although I noticed that someone was trying to cheer things up. Not sure how long these have been sitting outside. They’re looking a little weather worn and grubby. Hope may be wearing a bit thin?
below: Elsewhere yellow birdies were playing hockey.
Spring was elusive but what I did spot were a couple of stikmen that I don’t remember seeing before. I also noticed more smiley hearts popping up in unexpected places again. First, some of the hearts…
below: Cool Woodstock makes an appearance too (a yellow birdie of a different kind). I don’t think she’s too happy to have a bird sitting on her head.
below: The guitar player is now playing with heart.
And the stikmen….
below: Instead of wooden, this stikman is a drawing in a frame.
below: Is that a little orange head of a stikman in the bent frame?
….. and then back inside for some warmth!
I will leave you with one last look at a window full of yellow chicks and Easter bunnies, hope for spring (Hope springs eternal? Hopes of spring are eternal?).
Uber5000 is almost finished a new mural in Graffiti Alley!
below: Large hockey playing yellow birdies. One male and one female by the looks of it.
below: The mural is loosely based on Nathan Phillips Square in the winter time. See that Toronto sign? It has been painted with glow in the dark paint. Apparently, UV lights are going to be installed to illuminate the sign at night. Something to check out in the near future!
below: That’s one cool tree!
With thanks to Joanne (of My Life Lived Full blog ) for walking with me today! You were a great excuse to walk Graffiti Alley again…. and yes, there is always something new to discover!
as I walk Toronto 