A wonderful abundance of fresh fruit and veggies at this time of year.
Walking around the block, sort of, near Ossington and Queen.
North from Queen Street, west side of the alley
East side of the alley
Turning, now behind Queen Street West
Where the alley meets Brookfield Street
On Brookfield Street at Queen Street West
below: The red line marks the alleys in which the above photos were taken.
There is a lane that runs parallel, and just to the west of, Ossington Ave.
It’s only one block long, running north from Queen St. West to Humbert Street.
In the summer of 2012 this lane was the site for “Brighten the Corners For the Love of Art” mural project. The project involved a number of local community groups such as ProAction Cops and Kids as well as the Academy of Lions (a gym on Ossington Ave). Twenty artists painted many of the garage doors and fences in the alley. Some of the paintings remain, some have been defaced, and others have been painted over entirely since then. This is what the alley looked like last week.
The creatures on the garage door above always remind me of ‘scrubbing bubbles’ from the cleaning products of the same name.
Stephen Andrews POV
an exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario
Stephen Andrews is a Toronto artist whose career began in photography and the exhibit now on at the AGO does include a few excellent 8×10 photographs. The main part of the exhibit though are approximately 20 (mostly large) paintings of his.

below: ‘X-men at Union’, 2013, oil on canvas
Construction workers at Union Station, Toronto
below: ‘After Before/After After’ oil on wood panels
The two paintings on the wall were based on landscapes by J.M.W. Turner that depicted scenes before and after the flood described in the bible (or before and after chaos). Andrews has painted his with dots in only four colours, yellow, magenta, cyan and black
below: detail from ‘Crossing’, 2011, oil on canvas
below: close up of part of ‘Entrance/Exit’, 2014, oil on canvas
Canada Day 2015
There were celebrations at a number of locations around the city
including Queens Park and Yonge-Dundas Square.

The red outline of a maple leaf was then used to make a “living flag” of people wearing red T-shirts and white T-shirts. The crowd waited patiently behind the barricades while the organizers got their act together. Not everyone stayed on the sidelines!
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As I stood as part of the white of the Canadian flag, along came John Tory, also on the white team. Just out of the picture (and also in white) was Miss Teenage Toronto. (What? We have a what? I had no idea there was a Miss Teen Toronto). Next time I’ll try harder to get a picture of her but this time I was preoccupied with being part of a flag.
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Here’s to the next 148 years!
Toronto Pride Parade,
Bloor St. and Yonge St., June 2015
fun & games,
smiles & laughter,
community involvement
pride parade pics in no particular order
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