Today’s walk took me past three art installations that were new to me. All three had nature as the theme; I saw a giant abstract tree, upside down animals, and a walk in the forest.
The giant tree is ‘Red, Orange and Green’ by Michael Snow. This 14 metre high, stainless steel sculpture stands in a small park on Huntley Street. The gate of the park was locked, apparently closed for the season. I took a few pictures through the metal bars of the fence and made a note to myself to return next season for a closer look.
When I first started researching this piece, I read that it’s title was because of the way it reflected street lights. This didn’t make any sense – it sits in a park. In the early 1990’s the city of Toronto commissioned Snow to design a sculpture for the corner where Jarvis meets Mt Pleasant at Bloor St. East and this work is the result. When Rogers subsequently bought the building on that corner, they insisted on moving the sculpture to its present location. The building in the background of these photos is the Rogers building at Bloor and Jarvis (although that stretch of Jarvis has been renamed Ted Rogers Way).
Just around the corner on Sherbourne Street is an art installation by Eldon Garnet. It sits, or rather stands, on a condo development that incorporated the James Cooper Mansion at Linden and Sherbourne streets.
The house was built for James Cooper in 1881. He was a partner in Cooper and Smith, a company that imported, made, and sold footwear. The house had eight bedrooms and was built in the Second Empire style with a mansard roof and dormers. The house was purchased by the Knights of Columbus in 1910
Just a little farther south there is a quiet park just to the west of Sherbourne Street, Wellesley Magill Park. This park was named in honour of Wellesley Central Hospital and Dennis Magill. Magill was a founder of the Wellesley Institute and the first community Director of the Wellesley Hospital. The park is situated on the site of the old Wellesley Central Hospital which was demolished in 1998.
Running east-west along the park’s southern perimeter is a public artwork created in 2010 by Ed Pien. It is called ‘Forest Walk’ and it is 45 meter long wall comprised of eight sheets of painted steel. Each panel contains cut outs of a forest scene, or a scene of people walking through a forest.
below: The back of the fence. The park is on the other side of the fence.
as I walk Toronto 