below: “Protect your energy”
below:A raccoon in pinks and purples, by Jeff Blackburn
below: by Nick Sweetman – two ebony jewelwings, a male and female along with a partially submerged frog with its tongue ready for action. Jewelwings are a species of damselfly.
below: GETSO (or Getsofacto)
below: A larger than life grinning Cheshire Cat by Christina Mazzulla.
below: Some people by Elicser Elliott hanging out in a doorway.
below: Love in the alley
Photos taken January 2023
This blog post is the result of a walk around the vicinity of Lawrence Avenue East and Weston Road. The latter was once Main Street in the village of Weston.
below: Approach to the Weston pedestrian bridge over the railway tracks. The Grand Trunk Railway was built here in 1856 (now Canadian National Railway, CNR).
below: Elicser Elliott’s paintings of cyclists over the years line the ramp to the bridge.
below: Looking back to the west
below: Looking south towards Weston UP station (Union Pearson Express) at Lawrence Ave.
below: A young girl outside on a sunny day in a bright and cheerful painting on a lone house. Next door is an Islamic Association and Masjid. Like so many other places in the city now, a larger and taller building fills the background.
below: Street scene and evolution – The oldest buildings are in the row of two storey commercial establishments that line Weston Road (by the traffic lights). Behind them are apartments that are a few decade old. Last, the most recent development is in the immediate foreground, right hand side.
below: Jerk Hut, Desserts, Juices, and Candy Cakes all squeezed into a little building beside (behind?) CashWay. And while you’re there, you can get your palm read upstairs.
below: Southeast corner of Weston Road and Lawrence Avenue East.
below: For all your vegan leather and faux fur needs – Honeyy dripp (I had to look it up!)
below: There is a series of pictures on these windows that was painted by Bryan Bermudez, Jim Bravo, Niel Yee, and Rowena Kizito in 2014. It depicts young people from three different eras.
below: ‘Weston Streetscape circa 1900’ by Mario Noviello, 1997-1998. Original concept by Eric Lee. A streetcar passes in front of Weston City Hall. On the right is the Central Hotel with the brick steeple of Central United Church just visible behind it.
below: Another bike
below: I think that someone is a Maple Leaf fan!
below: Peter’s Barber Shop is now on Pantelis Kalamaris Gardens. In fact, the street was named after Peter back in 2012, just after the 50th anniversary of the shop opening (which was in 1961).
below: And nearby is Johnny Bower Blvd. Bower (1924-2017) was a Toronto Maple Leaf goalie in the 1960s, a great decade for the Leafs as they won the Stanley Cup four times…. 1962, 1963, 1964, and 1967. Bower and his family lived on this street at the time.
I also saw many wonderful older brick houses, the kind that we aren’t building any more. Some of the styles were common to Toronto while some were more unique.
below: All decorated for Valentines Day.
The next blog post, ‘Out and About in Weston’, features a mural in Weston that was painted by Christiano De Araujo.
And after that is, Que Rock and Bacon in Weston, with even more murals on Lawrence Avenue East
There is a railway bridge that crosses Lansdowne Ave just south of Dundas West. Along the concrete wall on the east side of the underpass is a long stretch of murals painted last year by a group of muralists and street artists. This is “Community Built”.
below: At the south end of paintings…. Ducks and loons in the water; ducks in flight by Nick Sweetman. Most people will recognize the green-headed mallard; the duck with the big black and white head is a male hooded merganser. A female merganser has a similar crest on her head except that it is brown.
Next to the ducks there are people fishing and wading in a creek. This portion was painted by Elicser Elliott.
below: Under the tracks, abstract flowers in yellows and oranges by Chris Perez
below: Black hands and white hands reaching out, by Rowell Soller
below: Kedre Brown (left) and Artchild (right)
below: Scenes on light green by Andrea Manica – a dog, a bee, and a couple of strawberries – walking in heels with coat and hat – sitting on a yellow blanket – a tent, mushrooms, and playing ball.
below: As the years go by we’ll be able to date the artworks of 2020 to 2022 by the presence of masks. That’s assuming that we won’t be wearing them again…..
below: Under a rainbow where nature thrives in a collaboration between Shawn Howe and Mo Thunder.
below: Que Rock
below: A few artists from Red Urban Nation Artists Collective had a section of the wall to paint
below: Part of the RUN Collective, is Ren Lonechild who painted the mother sasquatch with her little ones at the bottom of the stairs. Swooping and swirling around the apes and the stairs are ghostly creatures that are the work of Cedar Eve Peters
below: The view from the top of the stairs from Shirley Avenue
below: by Danielle Hyde
below: A mural with a message that the willow tree is nature’s aspirin. Willow bark contains salicin which is chemically similar to aspirin which also known as acetylsalicylic acid. The salicin chemical structure is shown in this mural by Keitha Keeshing-Tobias.
below: This project incorporated a previous public art installation on this site. Back in 1989 a number of small sculptures, or forms, by Dyan Marie were embedded into the wall of the underpass.
below: This is Leone McComas’s contribution to the ‘Community Built’ project
below: Alex Bacon painted dancers in hazy flowing shades of pink and orange.
below: Two murals.
below: Close up of the cyclist painted by Curtia Wright
below: Two brown figures by kaya joan
below: On the right – a blue woman reclines by a cluster of colourful houses. She’s got one hand on a pink lawn and her feet on a red lawn under a white-leafed tree. This mural was painted by Yasaman Mehrsa.
below: Close up view of the big regal cat by Planta Muisca as it sits on a blue mat by a bowl of papaya and a slice of lemon.
below: Welcome to Little Tibet … standing beside a white chicken by Caitlin Taguibao
below: People from the Little Tibet mural, by Kalsang Wangyal,
below: A mural by Tenzin Tsering on the right – a bonfire where “the flames of the bonfire represent the tradition of oral storytelling and act as a homage to the diverse and unique stories/voices of the people in Tkaronto.” (from her instagram page)
below: And what’s a Toronto mural if it doesn’t have a raccoon?
In the mural two pictures above, the painting on the left is the work of Jordan McKie (aka trip2thetop) The next few images are from that mural.
below: A dragon’s head at the north end of the underpass by June Kim.
below: Looking south
A Mural Routes project from 2021
June, Jordan McKie, Tenzin Tsering, Kalsang Wangyal (waz_graphics), Caitlin Taguibao, Planta Muisca, Yasaman Mehrsa, kaya joan, Curtia Wright, Alex Bacon, Leone McComas, Keitha Keeshig-Tobias Biizindam, Red Urban Nation Artists Collective (Drew Rickard, Danielle Hyde, Cedar Eve Peters, Ren Lonechild and Que Rock), Mo Thunder and Shawn Howe, Andrea Manica, Kedre Brown, ARTCHILD, Rowell Soller, Chris Perez, Elicser Elliott, Nick Sweetman.
Curator and community engagement facilitator: Bareket Kezwer
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!
This past Saturday’s walk started on a familiar corner, Bloor and Bathurst, but at a new place, Mallo Coffee. I don’t always mention my coffee starts and stops but not all of them have wonderfully eccentric washrooms! The wiggly strands of light were blue which gave the room an eerie blue glow.
Pre-COVID there was a proliferation of small independent coffee shops in the city. It’s nice to see that many have survived and many new ones are opening up. It’s not so nice to see the remains of those that didn’t make it.
From Bloor and Bathurst I walked generally east with a little south thrown in. Is this The Annex? or Harbord Village? Technically the quadrant to the southeast of Bloor and Bathurst is Harbord Village but I kept seeing street art referencing The Annex.
When you’ve been taking pictures in a city for more than 10 years, you end up walking the same streets and alleys. Sometimes you find yourself with identical pictures. Other times things have changed and there’s a new story to present. For this blog post there is a bit of both. Some of the murals that I saw in the lanes behind Bloor were new to me but there were many that I have blogged before. Rather than show all of the previous murals, I have linked to older posts.
below: Part of “Meet me at the Magnolias” by Leslie Phelan
below: The back part of a larger Elicser Elliott mural on the side of Dirty Bird Chicken and Waffle restaurant on Bloor Street. The full mural is featured in the blog post “feeling hungry?” from early in 2017.
Bagpipe Lane runs behind the south side of Bloor for less than a block
below: A few simple designs
below: Boris Badenov from the “Rocky and Bullwinkle Show” – who is he trying to blow up now?!
Barbara Barrett Lane is the eastern continuation of Bagpipe Lane. This is what you see when you first enter the lane from Borden Ave.
below: Nine years ago this was part of a mural that covered the back of buildings on Bloor Street. You can see it, and other murals that were in Barbara Barrett Lane at the time, in a blog post from 2013.
There is a large mural by Elicser Elliott on Barbara Barrett Lane. I have already posted quite a few pictures of it so rather than show more of the same, here is the link to the “elicser paints people” post.
David French Lane runs south from Barbara Barrett Lane.
below: Near the north end of David French Lane is this black and white garage. It is now partially covered with ivy and vines but it too also been around since 2013. At that time many of the garages were already covered with street art but they have all been re-painted (see 2013 blog post, ‘graffiti on garages’)
below: This mural on David French is very similar to the “street scene” mural on Barbara Barrett shown above. I wish there was a signature of some sort on them!
In 2017 there was a laneway paint project, “You Are Here” on David French Lane. Once again, you can see images of most of the garages in a previous blog post.
below: Dudeman’s skulls and old TTC bus were part of that project. Route 77B was a combination of the 77 Spadina bus and the 510 Spadina streetcar; it runs from Spadina station (on Bloor) south to Queens Quay before looping and returning north.
below: A dog with a spiked collar by Christina Mazzulla.
below: A blue eyed, black haired person with a tiger and a bluebird, all at 263.
below: Emily May Rose’s now iconic raccoons. They hang out all over the city!
below: “Fat bottomed girls … You make the rocking world go ’round” Name that tune!
Farther east there is another lane but with no name (Toronto is full of nameless lanes!).
below: Glorious old textures
below: This may or not be something called Tomo
… and back to Mallo. Until next time!
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
The El Mocambo, a Spadina landmark since 1948 has had a makeover
… including a new sign to go with its renovations. It has just re-opened after being closed since 2014.
The alley behind the tavern has been spruced up a bit too – 24 new murals have been painted over the past few weeks all within the theme of “Grit”
below: Elicser Elliott’s painting of the back of a building, with a masked and hooded horseman to the left.
below: Road runner and coyote, still together
below: Doorway painted by Adore
below: Circular calligraphy by kreecha
below: A Poser street scene
below: Devilish art
below: An older man sits on a bench watching the pigeons, a painting by Steam.
below: Archer in the city with a loaded paint brush, part of a mural by Keitha Keeshig Tobias
below: Oh oh! Little pink guy seems to have broken through…. painting by Skero
This project had the support of the city’s StreetARToronto program, the Chinatown BIA, as well as local businesses including El Mocambo and Gwartzman’s Art Supplies. It was led by Amos Danniels (a.k.a. ‘SIGHT’) as its co-curator and project manager along with Project Coordinator Nishina Loft.
Most people who visit Graffiti Alley don’t realize that there is another section of street art to the west. Technically, Graffiti Alley is the lane behind the south side of Queen Street West between Spadina and Augusta. The next section of the alley, from Augusta to Portland, is Rush Lane. Unfortunately there is a large Loblaws/Winners that blocks the lane on the west side of Portland.
To access the next couple of blocks of laneway, you have to detour down to Richmond Street and turn right. Public Lane is a few steps away from Richmond & Portland.
below: Public Lane turns to the left, regardless of what the arrow says.
below: Between here and Bathurst Street, a lot of street art has disappeared as redevelopment of Richmond has progressed. The large black building on the right has its garage entrance from the lane so watch for cars when you’re back there.
below: A few circles of colour on a grey wall, a reminder that there was once street art here.
below: Beyond Bathurst there is a long stretch of laneway. A lot of the paintings here are older and some may have already appeared in this blog.
below: A 2020 mural by Elicser Elliot
below: Huey Newton by elicser
below: Feelings Boi and a pink daisy from Life©
below: Woodstock love
below: By luvsomone
below: Yosemite Sam is now boxed in.
below: A resting UBER 5000 yellow birdie. Or is that a yoga mat?!
below: This little unicorn has always been a favorite of mine. Definitely an oldie now.
below: Collaboration between luvsomone, vuducats/Christina Mazzulla
below: Mural by Rodwell Soller
below: Happy face skulls
One of three murals newly painted on the Danforth is one by Elicser Elliott on the southeast corner of Danforth & Donlands (once a 7-Eleven store). Four other artists were involved in this mural which is part of ‘Destination Danforth’, a pilot project that involved a number of infrastructure improvements such as bike lanes and patios as well as creative elements such as these murals.
On the front and sides of the old 7-Eleven is this mural:
below: The swirls were painted by Flips (Swirlgod and BSC – Blurred Sight Clreared)
On the back of the building along the alley, is a mural in black, white, and shades of grey. “Enemy of Justice is Ignorance Allied with Power”
below: “No justice for Breonna Taylor” plays on the TV while a policeman in 2020 vintage riot gear stands by the door.
below: The year 1955 references the day that Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white man in Montgomery Alabama, 1 December 1955. It was the year that saw the birth of the African-American Civil Rights Movement in the USA. Police uniforms sure have changed!
This project was also a collaboration with the local BIA’s, StreetARToronto, and East End Arts.
Three other artists contributed to these murals: Spyone, Nick Sweetman, Smokestack Lightning, and Maysr
as I walk Toronto 