people | as I walk Toronto

Posts Tagged ‘people’

between Euclid and Palmerston

Posted: October 31, 2018 in alleys, graffiti and street art
Tags: Al Runt, alley, Andre Castro, Andre Kan, Anya Mielniczek, artist, bacon, Bomi, Cameron Chalmers, Chris Perez, Christina Mazzulla, cruz1, ctr, Diana Lynn VanderMeulen, Erin McCluskey, EWOK, ghazaraza, ghost fish, Gosia Komorski, Henry Tyminski, Jieun June Kim, Karen Roberts, ladder, lane, mck_studio, Meaghan Kehoe, Melo, Monica on the moon, Monica Wickeler, muisca, murals, narwhal, Natashia Faustino, Nick Sweetman, Nixo, paint brush, people, Raoul, Shafia Shaik, soul, spray paint, street art, streetARToronto, toucan, whale, white squirrels

Lightup the Laneway Project

below: The largest mural was a collaboration between three artists. In the middle, Bacon works with blue.

below: Christina Mazzulla working on her ghost fish.

below: And the last artist working on this mural is Nick Sweetman whose narwhal is on the west end.

below: Toucan by @ghazaraza (aka Ghazaleh)

below: Working on her mural, Anya Mielniczek

below: Completed mural with stencils of elephants around the bottom as well as a note about the precarious state of elephants in Botswana

below: Spraying on the orange hair in a mural by mck_studio (aka Meaghan Kehoe)

below: Autumn painting leaves, a mural by Erin McCluskey

below: Natashia Faustino and her pink cat (tiger?) on “Into the Wild”

below: Melo was the artist who created these organic looking blobs and swirls

below: Raoul working on his mural

below: Making straight edges on his mural, Andre Kan.

below: Flowers surrounding a peaceful woman in blue, a mural by Gosia Komorski

below: White squirrels on yellows and oranges by Karen Roberts

below: Al Runt puts some finishing touches on his mural

below: The finished mural

below: Near/Far by Henry Tyminski

below: More words, this time “It’s a beautiful day in the neighbourhood.” A quote from the TV show, ‘Mr. Rogers Neighbourhood’ along with a picture of Daniel Striped Tiger, a hand puppet from the same show.

below: Shafia Shaik working on her mural. The word GLOW has been cut off. The finished work was signed as EWOK project standing for Equity for Women of (K)olour.

below: A mural by muisca. The finished mural has green leaves and vines on both sides of the face.

below: Bright lines by Bomi (aka Rodrigo)

below: Finished whale by Andre Castro

below: A second whale, this one is the creation of CTR (aka Christian)

below: Cruz1 mural in the foreground

below: Slightly abstracted flowers by Chris Perez

below: A wonderful, larger than life loon swims towards the sunset, by Cameron Chalmers.

blog: Wild and crazy colours and shapes in a mural by Diana and Ted

below: Lines and angles all over the place, by Kenny Alexander

below: Lemon Drop man is waving at you. Mural by Jieun June Kim

below: Choose Kindness and a heart with four eyes! A mural by monica on the moon (aka Monica Wickeler)

below: A mural by Soul partially completed

below: And, last but not least, two murals by Nixo

This project was supported by StreetARToronto

window shooting

Posted: October 25, 2018 in reflections, stores, windows and walls
Tags: abandoned, chicken, clothes, cowboy, doll, empty, heart, laundry, mannequin, meat, newspaper, people, sewing machine, stores, windows

Sort of like window shopping but different….

below: Peering through the window at the remains of Yuk Wing cleaners on Gerrard St. East

below: Sometimes you can’t look in the window – something is in the way! It wasn’t until I was looking at the picture on my computer that I noticed that the newspaper is in a language that I don’t understand. I typed the headline to the left of the heart into google translate, “Niemiecka chemia zapanuje nad swiatem” and it told me that the words were Polish and translate to “German chemistry will dominate the world”. The article is about the purchase of Monsanto by Bayer.

below: A portion of the black cowboy silhouette remains in the now empty Tortilla Flats restaurant.

below: The effects of morning light shining into the Thai Luna restaurant.

below: More morning sunlight, this time it leaves traces of fried chicken.

below: Strutting in the window with miniature camels

below: Laundry day, with 24 hour surveillance

below: The chicken, and its head, really was that colour.

below: What little remains.

Waterlicht at the Bentway

Posted: October 15, 2018 in events, locations
Tags: Bentway, blue, Daan Roosegaarde, dark, event, fort york, lights, night, people, show, smoke, Waterlicht

Waterlicht is a large-scale light installation by Daan Roosegaarde, a Dutch artist. It showed at the Bentway, in front of Fort York, for three nights this past weekend.

below: Light, like water flowing under the Gardiner.

below: The fluid patterns of light and smoke created waves and angles of blue.

below: One of many selfies

below: From above

A day of photography, in three parts – Anthropocene

Posted: October 5, 2018 in galleries
Tags: AGO, Arizona, Art Gallery of Ontario, Chile, copper, Edward Burtynsky, lithium, people, photography, salt flats, tunneling, underground

Anthropocene
an exhibit of photographs by Edward Burtynsky
highlighting the mark that man is leaving on the environment.

below: Lithium Mine #1, Salt Flats, Atacama Desert, Chile, 2017 . The Salar de Atacama is the largest salt flat in Chille, located in the driest non-polar desert in the world. This is also the world’s greatest source of lithium. The shades of yellow, green, and blue represent the different stages of lithium evaporation.

below: A plastics recycling plant, Dandora landfill in Nairobi, Kenya, 2016

below: Uralkali Potash Mine #4, Berezniki Russia, 2017. This Russian mine includes about 3000 km of underground tunnels created by machines called combines used in the potash extraction process. These spaces are dark. The spiral patterns are left by the combines.

below: Morenci Mine #2, Clifton Arizona USA, 2012. Part of this photo shows the liquid reserves of waste left over from the copper extraction process. The marble like colours are the result of leached heavy metals. Copper smelting requires between 1500 and 3000 litres of water for every to of processed ore.

A day of photography, in three parts – World Press

Posted: October 5, 2018 in galleries
Tags: Anna Boyiazis, Carla Kogelman, exhibit, Galleria, garbage, Kadir van Lohuizen, Kevin Frayer, Luca Locatelli, penguins, people, photography, photos, rubbis, swimmers, Thomas P. Peschak, trash, Wasteland

The annual World Press Photo Exhibit is on at the Alan Lambert Galleria once again.

below: Finding Freedom in the Water by Anna Boyiazis, 2nd place, People stories.

below: Walking past four photos by Luca Locatelli about the environment, 2nd prize stories. These were taken in the Netherlands, a country that is the world’s second largest exporter of food (by value, after the USA).

below: On the right is “Jump”, by Thomas P. Peschak featuring a group of Rockhopper Penguins on Marion Island. Second prize, nature singles.

below: ‘Rohingya Refugees Flee into Bangladesh’, by Kevin Frayer. General news, 2nd prize stories.

below: “Wasteland” by Kadir van Lohuizen. A look at garbage in different countries. First prize, environment stories.

below: First prize winner in Long Term Projects, stories, “Ich Bin Waldviertel ” by Carla Kogelman – The life of two rural Austrian girls since 2012.

Nuit Blanche 2018

Posted: October 5, 2018 in events, people
Tags: Aga Khan museum, art, book, boy, colours, dark, downtown, drum, drummers, event, Hiba Abdallah, Insomnia, Interlacing, lights, mannequin, Nathan Phillips, night, people, performance, posing, reading, reflections, Scarborough Town Centre, shadows, Simin Keramati, This Storm is You, Zahra Saleki

This year’s Nuit Blanche was on September 28th and 29th. The night’s activities were spread over a large number of locations around the city. That was a few days ago so yes, I am a bit behind. I was laid low for a couple of days with this cold that’s been going around… or I took a few days to recover from being up until 3:30 a.m.!

below: Part of ‘Continuum: Pushing Towards the Light’ by Brandy Leary and the Anandam Dancetheatre. They made they way across the glass enclosed bridge over Queen Street between the Eaton Centre and The Bay store.

below: From behind the burlap (or tarp?) Nathan Phillips Square, from an installation ‘Radical Histories 2012-2018’ by Ibrahaim Mahama.

below: More from the same installation, this time from the “right” side. It was great for making shadow figures. Thanks to Jude for starting off the evening with me… and getting creative (silly?) too.

below: We found a photo shoot on Bay Street.

below: On Bloor Street, nothing to do with Nuit Blanche but it looked cool. Reflections and lights.

below: Eaton Centre, a quieter moment that night.

below: Checking the map. Yonge Dundas Square – the installation there was very unimpressive so I took people pics instead.

below: At Church of the Redeemer (Avenue Road and Bloor), Korean Dancers. “Star Moon Water Stone” by Ensemble Jeng Yi

below: Drummers, same venue as above.

below: ‘This Storm is You’ at the Ontario Science Centre, an installation by Zahra Saleki. Photography on the walls and stories on the floor.

below: Walk among the stories. “Every story deserves to be lit. Grab a sharpie and write yours.”

below: Smile!.. and a testament to the start of love. Two of many lit stories.

below: Saleki’s photos displayed here are abstract dance photographs in black and white. Negative images and slowing the camera to produce the blur of motion.

below: This is what you saw when you first got off the subway (is the SRT a subway?) at Scarborough Town Centre. It’s part of the ‘The Things They Carried’ Babel series. The motifs are similar to those on the installation at Yonge -Dundas Square, that oops, I don’t have a picture of.

below: At Scarborough Civic Centre, ‘Everything I Wanted to Tell You’ by Hiba Abdallah. A series of words in lights projected onto several buildings. The words changed every few seconds to tell a story or two.

below: More of the words. “People hold on so tightly to a specific narrative of this place”.

below: More projections at Scarborough Civic Centre. Sorry, not sure which installation this is.

below: Scarborough Town Centre (mall) had a mountain of inflatable globes you could walk under, or just look at. ‘Walk Among Worlds’ by Maximo Gonzalez

below: Weaving stories, ‘Interlacing’ by Community Arts Guild, at Scarborough Town Centre.

below: Watching a performance at the Scarborough Civic Centre.

below: Running through the lights.

below: Reflections, Aga Khan Museum

below: more Aga Khan

below: Showing ‘Insomnia’, a video filmed in Tehran showing simply the view out his bedroom window, by Simin Keramati, Aga Khan Museum

below: Trash at Yonge Dundas Square. Nothing to do with Nuit Blanche, just an ordinary day’s worth of garbage. It just happened to catch my eye as I was walking down the stairs to the subway.

Ending with rubbish would be a weird way to end a post, so here’s another mannequin. I saw lots of them that night too, unfazed by the activity around them, unmoved by the night’s events.

below: I’m out here every night. Nice of you to finally notice….

past under present

Posted: September 29, 2018 in graffiti and street art, intersections
Tags: black and white, Christiano De Araujo, monochrome, mural, people, photos, public art, Spring Grove Rd., St. Clair West, StART, street art, streetARToronto

From the monochrome past to the coloured present – there’s a new mural on the corner of St. Clair West and Spring Grove painted by Christiano De Araujo. Old black and white photos of the area and its people provide the background for a group of ten very modern and diverse people.

below: The top photo is 1732 St. Clair West in 1911.

below: On the top, very left corner, the black and white photo is a street scene – It’s St Clair Ave looking east from Prescott Avenue, under the railway bridge and beyond. The bridge was built in 1931 and the photo was taken shortly after that.

This is a StART (StreetARToronto) project

as summer winds down

Posted: September 26, 2018 in general Toronto, locations
Tags: bunnies, graffiti, Jesus, Kensington, Mary, Mona Lisa, Moonbean, mural, people, phone, poser, smoking, statues, stickers, tattoo, windows

below: The sign over Kensington but I guess that’s obvious.

Kensington pics from a warmer Saturday morning earlier in September.

below: Liz says eat more cheese

below: A smoke and a phone. Swiping right or left?

below: A homemade sign

below: Well dressed Swiss Misses

below: Walls and skin

below: Just a part of the van. If you’ve been to Kensington you may have seen this van – it’s totally covered with stickers.

below: Churro chairs

below: Morning coffee. Saturday mornings in Kensington begin quietly.

below: Faded and forgotten

below: These poser bunnies are a recent addition to the street art in Kensington

below: Mona Lisa and her fruit basket still look out over Kensington Ave. She still hasn’t eaten that banana. The black and white part of this now iconic mural (with the banana) was painted more than 30 years ago. The rest of the fruit was added after.

below: Looking a little frayed around the edges, like some of us at the end of the hot summer!

below: Not long ago there was only Mary in this window. Jesus is now keeping her company.

Amen

they rise above

Posted: September 25, 2018 in graffiti and street art, intersections, public art
Tags: Charlie Chaplin, collage, Daniel Mazzone, hoardings, intersection, James Dean, Michael Jackson, murals, people, pictures, St. Clair Ave., woman, words, Yonge St.

Art on construction hoardings.

below: Looking northwest at the intersection of Yonge Street and St. Clair Avenue West where seven large collages by Daniel Mazzone dominate the corner.

below: On the right, James Dean. It’s difficult to see in this photo, but there are some pink letters on either side of his face. On the left it says “Dream as if you’ll live forever”. On the right is says, “Live as if you will die today”.

below: She repeats. This woman is at the two ends. As far as I can tell, the only difference is the colour of the pattern in the background. On St. Clair it’s purple while it’s red on Yonge. Superman is on her forehead and, in fact, most of the pieces that are used in this artwork are from Superman comics.

below: Charlie Chaplin above the bus shelter. Many of the images used to create the face are also pictures of Charlie Chaplin.

below: Love sees no colour, with Michael Jackson above Yonge Street.

below: “Looking for Beauty” by Daniel Mazzone. Does she see any? There are a few Supermans here too, especially in her face. “Splow” is written in green on her neck.

Open streets on Yonge and Bloor.

Posted: September 19, 2018 in events, people
Tags: #openstreetsto, activities, AIDS walk, audience, AxeCapoeira, bikes, Bloor St., dancing, downtown, drummer, families, kids, Lamburghini, open streets, pedestrians, people, ROM, trumpet, walkers, yoga, Yonge St.

Open Streets – the second, and final, Open Streets for 2018 was held last Sunday. Large sections of Bloor and Yonge Streets downtown were closed to traffic leaving lots of room for cyclists, pedestrians and a number of activities.

below: Axe Capoeira