painted | as I walk Toronto

Posts Tagged ‘painted’

ending on Dufferin

Posted: February 14, 2020 in alleys, history, locations, old buildings
Tags: alley, butterfly, garage doors, Glenholme Ave., Glenholme Variety, graffiti, graffiti faces, heart, houses, ice, lane, love, man, mural, Murals by Marg, Oakwood Ave., Oakwood Collegiate, painted, red heart, Regal Heights, Ross Bonfanti, Sandra Tarantino, snow, spudbomb, stairs, stores, street, streetcar, woman

The general idea yesterday afternoon was to walk Oakwood, southbound from St. Clair. What I didn’t expect when I left my cosy apartment was a strong cold wind, so part of the adventure was dictated by which direction the wind was blowing and how to avoid it (if possible!). If some of these photos look a little blurry, it’s because of the snow that was falling all afternoon.

below: Pizza Pizza on the northwest corner of St. Clair and Oakwood.

below: I hadn’t gone far when I found a lane so of course I had to follow it… Looking back towards Oakwood Collegiate.

below: Old black and white photo of St. Clair Ave from 1911 just after construction of Oakwood Collegiate was complete. Oakwood Avenue is now on the other side of the school in this photo. It is interesting to note that St. Clair had streetcar tracks back in 1911 but was still a dirt road. Apparently the city started building these tracks when the school was open – the St. Clair streetcar line was open in 1913. I found this photo in Living Toronto – follow the link if you want to read more about the history of this school.

below: And that is where I spotted this man with a little red heart…

below: … and across the alley from him was this woman, also with another little red heart. It’s Valentines Day today, how sweet and how appropriate.

below: The hearts just kept on coming. I’d only walked a few minutes and already I had enough for a Valentines Day post! 🙂

below: At the end of the lane I spotted this too…. can you see the LOVE? It looks like it’s written in the middle of the pink and blue graffiti but it’s actually on the metal vent.

below: So much for walking down Oakwood. I circled back to St. Clair West where I saw the Yummi Cafe & Laundromat with it’s hand written sign in the window. Support Our Teachers! These are trying days for education in Ontario as the teachers lock horns with Doug Ford and his Conservatives who speak first and think later.

below: This is middle section of the Royal Heights village mural painted by Murals by Marg in 2019. It is on the side of 1006 St. CLair West (at Appleton Ave).

below: To the right is a small butterfly, child height. Choose to be kind.

below: The left side has a larger butterfly as well as a bright yellow door with a blue umbrella. Let love rain down!

below: Right across the street (on the northeast corner of Appleton & St. Clair) is this mural. I haven’t been able to find out who the artist was.

below: Looking west on St. Clair as you approach Glenholme.

below: A coin laundry as well as Glenholme Variety on the southwest corner of St. Clair and Glenholme.

below: In front of 98 Glenholme is this little sculpture, an old fashioned sewing machine on a pole. It marks the home of Marcello Tarantino Sartoria (tailor).

below: Another alley – the wind back here is not so bad!

below: An old green Chevrolet delivery van with Imperial Upholstering Co written across the side and above the front window in faded letters. Also fading is the text: Manufacturers of Individual Style(?) Furniture

Mural by Ross Bonfanti and Sandra Tarantino with hearts, stars, a flying car and superhero kids.

The alley ended at Dufferin and that is where I headed south.

below: The southwest corner of Dufferin and Davenport

below: A black and white photo from 1912 of the construction of Dufferin Street at Davenport. This photo is originally from the City of Toronto archives but I found it online in an article on the history of Dufferin Street in blogTO.

below: Mary looks down upon us, from a niche in the wall of St. Mary of the Angels church.

below: Remnants of an art project left to weather on a fence around a schoolyard.

below: A smiling happy mural on the side of a dental office on Dufferin Street painted by spudbomb (2017)

below: Just north of Dupont Street, the CPR tracks cross Dufferin.

below: This strange pillar (artwork?) is on the southwest corner of Dufferin and Dupont. It used to be the marker/sign for the stores in the Galleria plaza on that corner. Everything there is under renovation at the moment so instead of tearing down the sign, it was converted into this. Hence, “Love me till I’m me again”.

below: From a different angle – the neighbourhood wins no beauty contest.

below: The architecture on Dufferin, both houses and stores, is a mishmash of styles (or non-styles!) that have evolved over the years. The next few photos try to give you an idea of the variety. First, at Dufferin & Rosemount

below: Dufferin & Hallam

below: Dufferin & Auburn

below: Standing alone at 1432

below: 1452A and its neighbours

below: An ominous sign – a boarded up house on Dufferin Street. Is change far behind? Just in case, I like to document what’s there because in this city, you turn around and everything’s different. And you think to yourself, “What used to be there?” But you can’t remember because that is how our memories work and isn’t that disconcerting?

shout it from the mountain

Posted: July 22, 2018 in galleries
Tags: AGO, Ani Castillo, Art Gallery of Ontario, fabric, messages, painted, positive, Salvation Mountain, squares, words, youth

‘This Mountain Loves You’

is a mountain of positive messages stitched into a quilt-like artwork at the AGO. Fabric squares were decorated with pictures and messages and then hand stitched together. It is the creation of the AGO Youth Council, overseen by artist Ani Castillo.

black and white art by Ani Castillo of 'Toronto in the Summer', many whimsical scenes of the city in the summer, birds, trees, kids on scooters, lots, of legs, all kinds of flowers, picnics, the island, sun, the ex,

An example of her work, black and white drawings with a little bit of whimsy and a lot of heart…. ‘Toronto in the Summer’ by Ani Castillo. Found online at Bored Panda.

“I love my black hair and my black loves me”.
“It’s me and it’s you and we’re the universe too”.

Castillo worked with a group of young people (ages 14 to 24) over seven weeks and this was one of the results. I’m not sure how high it was, 4 or 5 metres perhaps?

Part of the AGO description of ‘This Mountain Loves You’ mentions that it is a tribute to, and a recreation of, Salvation Mountain in southern California.

Photo credit: by Kevin Key, found online at Los Angeles Magazine in an interesting article about the site and its creator, Larry Knight who worked on it for 30 years before his death in 2014.

As you can see in the above photo, Salvation Mountain is predominantly about God and Jesus whereas the fabric mountain proclaims a message of secular love, hope, and acceptance. Messages such as “trust in your abilities”, “love ahead!”, and “keep families together”.

Today was the last day that this ‘mountain’ was on display.

alley doors

Posted: May 10, 2018 in alleys, doors, graffiti and street art
Tags: alley, bird, birdo, buildings, chair, doors, garages, graffiti, hinges, lane, laneway, metal, mural, old, paint, painted, pasteups, peeling, red, rust, urban, wood

I know that this isn’t the first time that I have blogged about alley doors (previous alley post, Nov 2017) and I know that I tend to take a lot of pictures in alleys so I hope that you aren’t rolling your eyes right now. I’m not sure that I’ve found anything “wow” or anything completely new, but here we go with a little bit of rust, a splash of paint and a dose of weathered …..

below: A dead end alley with three levels of doors.

below: Lots of rusty hinges and peeling paint

below: Not an inviting place to sit and chat!

below: Something to catch an eye – a bright red door amidst the greys and browns. If you look closely, there is a bird roosting on the door.

below: Look up! And watch your step.

below: An alley with some colour in blues and greens…. and even a few straight lines.

below: Are you wondering if something’s missing? Where are all the graffiti covered doors?

Ahhh…. here we are.

below: Part of Graffiti Alley. A birdo eye peeping over a wall.

below: An eagle’s head

below: Another birdo, this time a rooster head and a ??? tail. Cock tail?

below: There really is a door under there. A very narrow door.

below: Another narrow door. This one is adorned by something purple, something that looks like a head but isn’t a head. More heads, as pasteups on either side of the door.

below: A solitary bird on a shadowy tree.

below: I think that there was once a red heart on that door.

below: Mass confusion on the wall, the door, and the window. Many people have left their mark here…

below: …. and here too. The door as a canvas that comes already framed.

below: Maybe the Pink Panther is suffering from writer’s block, pacing back and forth waiting for inspiration. Or he can’t find the doorbell? He forgot his key? No one’s home. Abandoned.

This is another Thursday Doors post inspired by Norm 2.0’s blog. You can check out Thursday Doors for links to even more doors that other people have blogged about. Take a wander over!

exposed

Posted: January 18, 2018 in construction, locations, old buildings
Tags: abandoned, architecture, brick, buildings, construction site, demolition, doors, empty, exposed, furniture, interior walls, metal, painted, pipes, store, windows, wood, workmen

This is the story of one building at one intersection, Yonge and Belsize (just south of Eglinton) but it’s also a story that is being repeated over and over again in the city. The story of demolition and rebuilding. The story of loss of the older wood and brick structures as they are replaced by glass and steel.

By December 2016 all of the businesses had closed down.

below: The back of the building

Just over a year later demolition began in earnest.

alley doors, back doors

Posted: November 23, 2017 in alleys, doors
Tags: alley, back doors, bench, coin laundry, doors, entrance, fence, gate, graffiti, metal, painted, white, wood

This post features some of the doors that caught my eye as I walked a few alleys this past week.

below: It was the colour of the plant outside the gate that I liked – It’s almost a perfect match with the colour of the fence.

below: These grey metal doors are a common sight as are metal staircases. Were the boards an attempt at a wall? A hiding place under the stairs?

below: You can get your laundry done in this alley. There is even a bench to sit on while you wait.

below: At first I thought that this was a strange place to put a door. Very awkward! Then I realized that it was probably just an old door that was being used to fill in the gap between the garage and the neighbouring building.

below: An interesting texture

below: And last, another common sight, scrawls on the wall.

It’s been a few months since I did a blog post about doors. If you like doors, you might want to check out a couple of previous posts:

Spadina Open Doors
Late doors (of Mt Pleasant cemetery)

If you go to Norm 2.0’s blog feature Thursday Doors, there are links to even more doors that other people have blogged about. Check them out!

milky way revisited

Posted: July 21, 2017 in alleys, graffiti and street art
Tags: aliens, alley, face, graffiti, green people, lane, lion, Milky Way, mural, naked, painted, parkdale, people, rose, space aliens, stickers, street art, streetcar, tree, vines, weeds, women

Sometimes graffiti and street art have a short life span. Many taggers don’t care about what they are tagging over. Street art can also be “interactive” in that stickers and paste ups can get “added” to a piece. Anyone with a marker can have their say. On the bright side, new murals get painted and new paste -ups appear. And that is why I go back to the my favorite alleys every once in a while. This morning I walked the Milky Way again.

below: The Parkdale mural by Race Williams is still looking good.

below: The naked women are a bit more modestly dressed than they once were .

The most noticeable change is the fact that many pieces are now at least partially covered by greenery – small shrubs and tall weeds have proliferated and are looking quite healthy.

below: This lion is looking more and more like the king of the jungle even as the words faded and peel.

below: The small aliens at the top of the building are now in the shade of a fast growing tree.

below: And the larger aliens on the fence really need a hair cut now.

below: A large pink peony (at least that’s what it looks like)

below: The fence around the garden.

Previous Milky Way posts
Back to the Milky Way – Sept 2015
Walking the Milky Way – Oct 2014

colourful cuteness

Posted: June 9, 2017 in graffiti and street art, locations
Tags: animals, bunny, cats, dog, mural, painted, Queen St. East, rabbit, street art, Toronto Humane Society, turtle, uber5000

Hey! Stop and take a look.

There’s a new mural in town that covers most of the south wall of the Toronto Humane Society on Queen Street East (at River Street ). What could be more appropriate for this wall than cats and dogs and other animals?

I first saw the mural late in May when just the outlines of the animals had been drawn on the wall. The artist, Uber5000, been working on it since then…. it’s not quite finished but it’s looking great! Bright and cheerful; colourful and fun.

below: The mural has turtles and rabbits – Yes, the Toronto Humane Society has bunnies and turtles too (but I don’t think they have such cool red glasses)!

below: The dog portion at the east end of the mural just needs some finishing touches.

below: Of course there are cats and kittens… and cute and playful ones at that.

UPDATED (August 2017): The mural is now finished.

A great addition to Queen Street East!

aging faces in Kensington

Posted: September 1, 2016 in graffiti and street art, locations
Tags: alley, anser, boy, defaced, dog, eyes, faces, fence, gate, graffiti, hinge, Kensington, lane, lock, men, metal, mural, old, painted, paste up, peeling, rust, scrawl, spray paint, stencil, street art, tags, uber5000, wall, weathered, woman, wood

Wood cracks. Metal rusts. Paint fades and paint peels, its just what happens to paint when its exposed to the elements. Street art painted on a surface suffers the same fate. Nothing lasts forever and sometimes a mural’s life span is quite short. Sometimes other factors come into play – street art is defaced or altered in some way. Tags cover it; words get written on it. That too is the nature of street art.

below: I love what the weather has done to this woman’s face. Aging with grace and dignity. The texture of the old wood adds an element of depth and character to her as well.

below: One slat replaced. I’m sure it wasn’t the artist’s intent, but the gaps in the wood look like bars in a cage, or those metal bars you often see on windows.

below: Broken chin, but still watching the world pass by on Baldwin Street.

below: Yelling at the bushes.

below: Eyes are mysterious things. I have never been able to draw them properly and I am in awe of those who can. Even more so if the eyes communicate something, some emotion or expression.

below: I have always been intrigued by this face. A photo of the original painting hangs on one of my walls. I still find her mesmerizing. Those blue eyes still stare at the world. Is she looking through a veil? Or is she able to see through all the nonsense that the world throws at her?

below: A devilish child is still in good shape.

below: “Without money we’d all be rich”. That’s the kerb (curb) that runs along the bottom of the picture. Her whole face was not there in the first place.

below: And animal faces too!

street food…. sort of

Posted: August 29, 2016 in graffiti and street art, locations
Tags: apple, artichoke, banana, blueberries, carrots, community, eggplant, fruit, green onion, Kensington, lemon, mural, mushroom, onion, painted, painting, peas, peas in a pod, people, pod, raspberry, road mural, turnip, vegetables, watermelon

Toronto’s first “street” art – a mural on the pavement, painted on the street itself. It’s located on Baldwin Street in the Kensington market area.

below: The mural was painted on Pedestrian Sunday (28 Aug) when the streets were closed anyhow.

Murals on the street aren’t legal in this city. In 2015 City council voted against making them legit. Instead, they allowed this one to go ahead as part of the StART Road Mural Pilot Project. Plans are afoot for a few more to be painted in the next couple of months. The city has imposed some restrictions as to where they can be painted, rules such as the murals need to be away from intersections and be on streets with a low volume of traffic. It is rumoured that future road murals will be on Condor Avenue (west of Greenwood subway yard), Lauder Avenue (near Dufferin and St. Clair), Hiawatha Road (Little India), and lastly, somewhere in North York

below: The next two pictures were taken from the upper level of the adjacent parking structure (where I had a chat with a security guard, private property and all that).

The pilot murals are all the result of work by community groups – people within a community working together to produce something representative of that community.

below: Painting a raspberry. The shapes were drawn by artist Victor Fraser and then painted by a number of artists and volunteers. It is an acrylic based paint that will wear off in 6 to 9 months.

below: From street level – peas in a pod, a clove of garlic, a bunch of spring onions, an artichoke, a banana, and in the distance a lot more!

This project was organized by Stas Ukhanov and supported by the Kensington Market BIA.

oldies on Camden Street

Posted: August 16, 2016 in graffiti and street art, locations
Tags: alley, arrows, art or vandalism, brick, cars, cartoon, community, dirty, dots, downtown, faces, garbage bins, graffiti, gun, lane, metal bars, off the heezy, painted, parking lot, people, project, trash, wall, windows, words

Well, not really Camden Street, but an alley that runs perpendicular to the street…. If the lane has a name I don’t know what it is. Google maps doesn’t even include it. It’s a very short alley that runs both north and south from Camden street and it doesn’t go anywhere. Both sections were painted with murals 9 or 10 years ago. Amazingly, they have survived.

Let’s start with the south side of Camden Street.

below: Mural Project, “The walls won’t know what hit them”. The mural was painted in 2006 youth from the Harbourfront and Cecil Community Centres as part of the City of Toronto’s Graffiti Transformation Project.

below: The mural is painted in a quasi cartoon style.

below: She’s upset and she’s expressing her hurt and anger with spray paint seems to be the start of the story.

below: My knowledge of slang is limited, and this is 10 years old but this sheezy is cool. It’s probably as simple as “this sure is cool”, i.e. spray painting graffiti is cool.

below: Oh no! I always laugh when I hear this expression these days… is there anywhere in Toronto where property values are going down? Okay, okay, so it’s part of the story – she’s complaining that someone has sprayed graffiti somewhere nearby, the vandalism part of the story. The angry young woman or the “sheezy heezy” guy above have been busy in her neighbourhood.

below: As you can see, a couple of things were in the way as I was taking pictures. I am not sure exactly how the plot of the mural progresses from here because I couldn’t see the whole thing. There are gaps in the story line. A few missing pages so to speak.

below: Flesh tones as dots in the face of woman who plays an unknown role in this story – the mystery woman?

below: I suspect that this is the “We’ve got to get rid of the graffiti” part of the story. Is it improper to make comments about Rob Ford and his anti-graffiti program here? I don’t want to insult the mural or the project behind it because I think that the Graffiti Transformation Project is an excellent program.

below: If there was a mural on the other side of the alley, it’s long gone.

A short walk across Camden Street to the other half of the alley….

below: You can see the taller buildings on Richmond Street West but you can’t get there from here.
And like most downtown alleys, garbage bins are a dominant feature.

below: At the entrance to the alley. There are words under the window by the sunflowers that say that this painting is also the work of the Harbourfront/Cecil Community Centre’s Graffiti Transformation Project, 2007.

below: A very low window with green arrows

below: And last, I’ll end with a weather comment because we’ve all been talking (complaining?) about it these days – someone’s a bit overdressed for this August weather although it doesn’t seem to bother him. Maybe he knows something we don’t. Or maybe it’s just wishful thinking.

Stay cool!

as I walk Toronto

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