Graffiti faces seen in alleys and lanes recently.
White bust on a wall near Bathurst subway station. She has been here for quite some time now; it’s good to see that no one has tagged over her
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musician – and my apologies because I am not sure who it is.
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colourful face
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Closed eyes between the garages
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Love Spraying Dude, a colourful little guy
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Hiding behind the trees
*****
A selection of the graffiti animals that I have encountered in the past few weeks.
rhino and his feathered friends, parking lot off College St.
This is only part of the mural…. more below.
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large beaks, large birds
This is only part of the mural…. more above.
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oink, oink
A mural by ACS murals
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guardasaurus to watch over the door
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posr rabbit tucked in beside a garage – hiding from those who are hunting rabbits
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Creature with scales and a tail, Willis St., near the northwest corner of Queen and Bathurst streets.
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Elephants herd of three, but you can only see two of them in this picture. The elephant on the right didn’t fit in the photo…. but it looked just like the one of the left except it’s facing the other way.
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hummingbird hovering beside a garage door
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St. Enochs Square, between Massey Hall and the back of the stores facing Yonge St., just south of Shuter St.
This mural was painted about a year ago as part of a project to rejuvenate this alley. It was a collaboration between EGR and Elicser Elliott.
entrance to St. Enochs Sq. on Shuter St.
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left side of the mural
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blowing dandelions
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panorama of the mural
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Bulwer Street is a short street that runs parallel to, and one block north of, Queen Street West. It is only one block long, running east from Spadina Ave to Soho St.
children behind the fence
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children playing in the parking lot
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white eyes
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he’s got the whole city in his hands
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rooftop reflections
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mirrored in the glass
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facing the alley
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only half the man he used to be
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the back door
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tag – suniti? BA Kings?
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parts of three tags on a wall
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wired tags on concrete
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worn away but clinging on
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Uber 500’s little yellow bird shows up on this street too
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little fish, big teethfish
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one of the many, many, views of the CN tower
*****
There is an alley that runs behind Bathurst, on the west side. Most of these photos were taken in that alley. All of the photos are of sticker, or paper, graffiti that I saw when I walked that alley a week or so ago.
It used to be a window, now it is an ever changing canvas.
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spirograph on the metal pole.
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strawberry man gets licked by dog, a mask looks at you, decolonize and phi-nite, all in a small space
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have wings, will skateboard
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calzone tag unfortunately scribbled on top.
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Billy and friends
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brown girl on the wall
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blue cat with lace
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red eye
*****
A little dead end alley in Kensington and the graffiti I found there.
A chain link fence at the end of the alley.
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I love the way that the faces are incomplete compared to rest of the anatomy.
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The seemingly endless battle between graffiti artists and those who wantonly tag over their work.
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squares pieced together
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hidden doorway
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steaming
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chaos with stickers and scribbles
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grimacing skull by the fence
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A few things that I saw today as I walked from Richmond and Spadina, southwestward to King and Shaw. A beautiful sunny Tuesday afternoon.
rusted and authorized
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Happily perched above it all with a birds eye view of Richmond Street West.
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Smoking on the roof.
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Stop Rob Ford at the western end of a one way Richmond street.
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window and light, Palace Hotel, at King and Strachan.
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Afternoon light.
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fish piss in the alley
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Black and white and speckled all over. This was one in a series of five or six windows of various sizes along the same wall. The black and white painting gave the wall an interesting look although I am not sure of pictures of the individual windows are all that interesting!
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The alley I was walking down turned, but as I turned the corner I realized that I had come to a dead end. I spotted this poster on one of the garage doors that was there. According to the man standing inside one of the other garages, lots of people end up doing U-turns in front of his garage – including cars that come zooming around the corner, only to have to hit their brakes.
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A sticker of a black hearted, square headed, yellow robot on a blue dumpster.
for more information about the lovebots, http://lovebot.com/about
This photo was taken while standing in a parking lot near the southeast corner of Adelaide and Bathurst streets.
The graffiti across the lower part of the building is by homebase. Their website: http://www.homebasetoronto.com
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Barbara Barrett lane is located in Harbord village. It runs east-west and is immediately south of Bloor Street West between Borden Street and Brunswick Avenue.
The lane was recently named after Barbara Barrett who was the founder of the Toronto School of Art in 1969. The school was originally located at Sussex and Brunswick. Barbara died in 2005 in her 89th year.
Like many lanes and alleys in the area, there are a number of murals and interesting pieces of graffiti.
birds on a wire
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solving Rubiks’s cube
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one way to the window
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at the corner
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girl on a swing. She is in the entranceway to the Green Room restaurant.
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smiling, laughing stencil faces
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zipping around
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a door in the mural
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Croft Street is not a street, but it’s more than a lane.
It runs between Harbord Street and College Street, just west of Bathurst Street. Although there are many different interesting things to be seen when you walk along this street, I have chosen to focus on the street art for this blog post. The following is a selection of what I saw.
surveying the scene
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a closer look
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paint and rust
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can’t sleep so I write
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Harbord street sign
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Did you know our Monty the cat?
King of Croft and all that
(Ask your dog. Ask your cat)
Did you give him a pet
Once you had met?
Or tickle his soft silken tum tum?
Did he tell you his tale in articulate meow
And share his affection with a rub of his brow?
His loss here has left us really quite blue
But remembering all of those of YOU
Who knew how to share a sweet kindness true
Who would pause on the way,
In midst of each day,
To offer wee beastie
affectionate feastie
In Memory of Monty
Thank you!
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painted cat on painted window sill on painted brick wall
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on the streets of Toronto
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hidden doorway
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tutti frutti
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with hands on hips and with added words
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art at the front door
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greenery
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black and white and red all over
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Here I stand in silence
but the patter of the rain
who I was, you’ll never know;
my triumph
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staring eyes
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mail man
At the south end of the street, there is a large red, white and blue mural by posr. I have not included it in this blog post because it warrants a post of its own. It’s the next blog post, or the URL is https://mcfcrandall.wordpress.com/2013/11/05/posr-on-croft-street/
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umbrella, parapluie, paraguas
red, rouge, rojo,
Grey, damp days always need a touch of colour.
Yesterday, as I walked from Dupont subway station to Kensington I made use of my red umbrella. It kept me dry. It brightened up a few photos!
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Every rainy day needs a splash of colour.
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caught in the alley
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When this mural was first painted, there was a downspout for the eavestrough running down the side of the wall. Her hand was painted to look like it was reaching for, or holding onto, the downspout. Because that downspout is no longer there, I decided that she needed something else to hold on to.
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left in a puddle
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‘Whatsoever you do’, a sculpture by Timothy Schmalz. It is also referred to as ‘Homeless Jesus’. This installation is outside of St. Stephen-in-the Fields church on College Street. It was installed on 14 September and was originally scheduled to remain there until 6 October. According to the description of the sculpture, it is a fiberglass cast of a silent, huddled panhandler. A person that people walk by and ignore. But if you look at the outstretched hand, you will see the stigmata (the wounds of Christ).
When we first placed the umbrella over her, we worried about the appropriateness of such an action but as I took the photo, a passerby commented on how people have been known to place cheeseburgers and other food in her hand.
The statue was stolen at the end of November. More information
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car roof reflections
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red and yellow
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top hat, umbrella…. where are my dancing shoes?
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Toronto siesta
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something old, something new
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The End
Special thanks to Sasha and David who played along and made the day even better!
Also to Michael for crouching against a purple wall!
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