people | as I walk Toronto

Posts Tagged ‘people’

late afternoon, Graffiti Alley

Posted: August 12, 2016 in graffiti and street art, locations
Tags: airplane, alley, bins, blocked, bunnies, cars, garbage, graffiti, Graffiti Alley, light, lovebot, people, poser, rubbish, Rush Lane, selfies, shadows, stickers, stikman, street art, tags, traffic, trash cans, video

As you may know, every few months I wander down Rush Lane and all the other lanes that make up Graffiti Alley on the south side of Queen West. There is usually something new on the walls and hydro poles and there are often people watching opportunities as well. Wednesday’s walk did not disappoint. Here is the photographic evidence – some street art that I saw for the first time and some worth a second look… and even a person or two.

below: Taking selfies is an artform in itself.

below: Making a video in one of the side alleys.

below: A home for hundreds of stickers, all nicely frames together

below: This poser bunny takes the spotlight.

below: A new piece, with some older poser bunnies in the background.

below: When I first saw this piece (by elicser?) I thought that he had his heart in his hands. As I look at it more, I’m not so sure. Any ideas? Also, “How long do we have?” An open question, an incomplete question, a mysterious question, or a question of philosophy. You see, one question leads to another.

below: This one isn’t new and isn’t particularly outstanding, but the way the sun was shining on it caught my eye. A bit of a silly comment – I’ll assume that W C doesn’t stand for water closet!

below: Donald Trump and the lovebot share a pole. Poor lovebot 😦

below: Street art by gems

below: One more new street art piece

below: Talking trash says “She’s bound to put a blanket on my bed”.

below: A small blue airplane and another little blue thing, all that remains of a larger mural painted long ago.

below: Apparently he doesn’t miss us?

below: Oh no! Stikman is behind bars and lovebot’s been restrained.

below: A seat and a smoke at break time. Maybe he’s texting his girlfriend about the weirdos he sees in the alley. Or maybe he took my picture and he’s adding it to his instagram collection of strangers in the lane! 🙂

below: A protest piece. A play on the national anthem. Oh Canada our home on native land.

below: One word of warning if you plan to walk this alley in the late afternoon, you may be dodging cars that are trying to avoid Queen Street traffic.

below: But you’ll also be entertained by those who get stuck. It’s especially amusing when it’s the more aggressive drivers who are thwarted. It is a working alley, not a street, after all.

the colours of Chihuly

Posted: August 9, 2016 in galleries
Tags: aquatic, art, birch logs, boat, Chihuly, colours, garden, glass, light, neon, people, persians, red, reflection, ROM, Royal Ontario Museum, sculpture, shapes, tubes, tumbleweeds, underwater

The word Chihuly in the title refers to Dale Chihuly, an American artist who has been working in glass since the mid 1960’s. At the moment there is a special exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) of some of the sculptural work produced by him and his team.

I’ve now wandered through this exhibit three times. The first time, I found it a bit overwhelming and I wasn’t sure how to photograph it. The second time I went I just looked. Yesterday I went back with my camera and tried again. I’m reasonably happy with the photos but I know that I have only captured a small part of the art. Perhaps it is enough to enable you to imagine more of it, or to refresh your memory if you have already seen the exhibit.

below: Admirers looking at “Persian Ceiling”, 2012 . Large cushions were provided for those who wanted to lie down to get a view of the ceiling in its entirety. Of course, looking at the sections up close was also fascinating. All the different shapes and colours overlap and produce new colours and textures.

below: Section of the “Persian Ceiling” installation.

The round slight scalloped glass shapes that look a bit like flowers are called Persians. At least that’s the name that Chihuly has given them as described in this quote that appears on the wall just outside the room. “I just liked the name Persians. It conjured up sort of Near-Eastern, Byzantine, Far East, Venice, all the trades, smells, sense… I don’t know, it was an exotic name to me, so I just called them Persians.”

below: A ray swims amongst the waves of colour.

below: “Red Reeds”. I thought of candles when I first saw this piece, red candles in a birch bark candle holder. Then the young girl standing beside me announced that it was a campfire and I changed my mind. I think she’s right. Marshmallows anyone?

The red tubes are hollow glass. Metal rods have been inserted into the birch logs and the glass tubes sit over these rods. You can see the darker sections at the bottom of the tubes where the metal rods are.

below: “Blue and Purple Boat, 2006”. Back in 1995 Chihuly floated some glass pieces on a river in Finland. Local teenagers collected the pieces in their wooden boats and this provided the inspiration for a number of installations featuring glass in boats. This is one of two on display at the ROM. It is on a reflective surface, like a calm river.

below: “Sapphire Neon Tumbleweeds” constructed from factory made neon tubes that have been heated and bent into organic shapes. The lighting is magenta in real life but blue in my photos.

below: The next few photos are of a large and elaborate installation called “Laguna Torcello”, named after a lagoon island in Venice. It is a garden of fantasy in glass. Parts seem to be aquatic, growing under water.

As an aside, I suspect that the logistics and cost of transporting and installing these pieces is not minor. Like the red tubes above, this garden is made of hollow glass pieces that are arranged on, and supported by, rods. The whole thing sits on a flat, dark, and reflective surface which adds another dimension to the artwork.

The exhibit continues until the end of 2016.

Dale Chihuly website

summer in the city, July edition

Posted: July 29, 2016 in general Toronto, people
Tags: boats, fun, games, kids, lake, Lake Ontario, men, people, police, pride, summer, sun, waterfront, watermelon, women

July is almost over – yes, summer is flying by.
So far, it’s been a good one!

below: Staying cool and having fun in the Yonge Dundas square fountains

below: A giant bite from a giant watermelon slice

below: A Bay Street hug and kiss.

below: An impromptu serenade

below: Watching the entertainment at the waterfront – it’s magical

below: Making comfort at Afrofest, Woodbine Park

below: A Canada Day kiss.

below: Leave your message by the outdoor facilities!

below: A mother and daughter stroll on the waterfront

below: Posing, Pride fun

below: Blowing bubbles by the lake.

Happy August everyone!

come pose with me

Posted: July 29, 2016 in public art
Tags: & M, arm, Bayview, bell, boot, bronze, Canary district, cannon, columns, faces, Front St., future follies, Hadley & Maxwell, hands, horse, legs, lion, men, people, public art, sculpture, sculpture garden, statue, women

The first time I saw the latest art installation in the Canary District I was in a car and only got a quick look at it. I couldn’t figure out what the mess was all about. It wasn’t until I went back on foot to take a closer look that I could appreciate what the artists were trying to do.

Located at Front and Bayview is the ‘Garden of Future Follies’ by Hadley Howes and Maxwell Stephens (Hadley & Maxwell and the Studio of Received Ideas). It is a sculpture garden and there are 7 sculptures in this garden. Each sculpture is a mashup of pieces from different sculptures around Toronto. Aluminum foil ‘molds’ were used to replicate portions of over 80 different monuments and architectural features. These portions were then put together in a whole new way.

From an interview with the artists:

“Sir John A. Macdonald’s nose is assembled along with the eyes of artists Frances Loring and Florence Wyle, the chin of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, and Northrop Frye’s hair; Jack Layton’s smile is one of seven that grace a figure lounging atop a reconstituted mantel from the library at Osgoode Hall; a bell from St. James Cathedral’s famous collection is perched on a cannon from Fort York; while nearby a suitcase from the Memorial to Italian Immigrants acts as a plinth for a collection of hats from various bronze heads.”

Now you can play spot the pieces! But you won’t find any hockey sticks.

So far I haven’t seen anyone taking selfies here but I think it would be a great spot for them!

below: No one will ever call it beautiful, playful yes, but not pretty.

north and south, blue and green

Posted: July 20, 2016 in galleries
Tags: AGO, arctic, art, Art Gallery of Ontario, artists, blue, Caribbean, cold, greens, group of seven, Hurvic Anderson, ice, ice bergs, Jamaica, Lawren Harris, leaves, mountains, painters, people, snow, Trinidad, tropics, welcome

A comparison of sorts. Two painters from two different time periods. One looked north and the other looks south. The north with its barren cold and blue in comparison to the south and its lush greenness. A famous anglo Canadian painter who went searching for simplicity and a relatively new British painter with Jamaican roots who explores complexities.

Lawren Harris and Hurvin Anderson. You should know which is which!

I didn’t purposely set out to compare them. I saw the ‘The Idea of North’ exhibit that features the Steve Martin paintings of Lawren Harris first. As much as I like the Group of Seven, Harris’s minimalist snow and ice paintings have never been my favorite. Still, it was an interesting collection to see. After I finished there, I headed up to the contemporary art floors. The fifth floor is still closed (new installation opening later this week) but I discovered that the fourth floor is devoted to the works of Hurvin Anderson. As I walked around the Anderson installation I kept thinking of similarities and differences between him and Lawren Harris.

below: Mountains in Snow: Rocky Mountain Paintings VII, 1929. One of the many famous Lawren Harris snow and ice paintings. Light, reflected light, shadows, and contrasts. The elements reduced to their simplest form. The landscape itself is almost secondary. Or the landscape is the medium, not the message.

below: The large painting on the right is ‘Pic Island’ painted about 1924. Pic Island is an unpopulated island along the north shore of Lake Superior. Today the island is part of Neys Provincial Park.

below: Two of Hurvin Anderson’s paintings from his Caribbean landscape collection. On the left is ‘Beaded Curtain – Red Apples’, 2010.

below: ‘Constructed View’, 2010. Anderson’s Caribbean paintings have grilles incorporated into them. These are the security features prevalent on houses and businesses in the Caribbean (and elsewhere in the world), metal fixtures over windows and doors to keep out the unwanted. They contain what’s inside. They are a barrier. They intrude on the landscape and cut it up. Again, the landscape is almost secondary. The message, or emotion, is more important. [aside – There is a grille in the painting above (right) but it’s more subtle.]

Lawren Harris painted his famous mountain pictures in the late 1920’s. In 1930 he visited Baffin Island and a few paintings resulted from that trip. I learned that although I associate Harris with icebergs and arctic scenery, most of his snow and ice paintings were from the north shore of Lake Superior or from the mountains around Banff Alberta.

The repetoire of both painters is not limited to landscapes. Harris painted many houses and street scenes from downtown Toronto including houses and streets that were demolished years ago. The examples of Anderson’s non-landscape work were interiors. Both men used bold colours but Anderson tends to show more detail in his paintings.

below: ‘Welcome: Carib’ The Welcome sign of the bar in juxtaposition with the red metal work covering the window. The picture beckons to us but keeps us out.

below: One of the paintings from Anderson’s Barbershop collection, ‘Flat Top’ 2008.

below: A selection of colourful Toronto houses in winter painted by Harris in the 1920s.

In the 1930’s Lawren Harris’s personal life went awry. The words on the wall at the AGO says that he divorced, remarried and moved to the states. That’s a bit of spin. He didn’t divorce his wife because that would be messy, apparently. Instead in 1934 he just married the wife of an old friend. And of course that turned messy and the new couple left for the USA for a few years before eventually settling in Vancouver BC. Harris’s post-1934 work is very abstract and was never as successful as his earlier paintings.

below: You can see the influence of the mountain paintings in this, ‘Painting No. 4’, about 1939, painted when he was a member of the Transcendental Painting Group. This was a collective of artists in New Mexico that Harris help to found.

below: Since I have no idea where the art of Hurvin Anderson is headed, I will leave you with one more of his present paintings (I’m not sure those two ideas actually go together!). ‘Foska Foska’, the interior of a shop behind yellow bars and black mesh.

The Idea of North – until 18 September

Hurvin Anderson – until 21 August

#HarrisAGO | #HurvinAndersonAGO

Festival of India parade

Posted: July 18, 2016 in events
Tags: chanting, chariot, clapping, colours, crowd, dancing, families, festival, India, kids, men, parade, people, pulling, ropes, sarees, Toronto, walking, women, Yonge St.

Many people walked and danced, clapped and chanted, as they paraded down Yonge Street on Saturday to start the annual Festival of India weekend.

The parade is similar to an annual procession (Ratha Yatra) that has occurred for centuries in the city of Puri, India as part of a Hindu festival associated with the god Jagannath. Here in Toronto, as in Puri, three chariots constructed to look like temples are pulled through the streets in a procession from one temple to another. Each chariot carries a richly decorated representation of a god, first is Jagannatha (another name for Krishna or God) and then his brother Baladeva and his sister Subhadra. The chariots are pulled by people and the procession symbolizes the pulling of the Lord into our hearts.

In Puri, this Ratha-Yatra procession continues to attract over a million people every year. In Toronto, the numbers aren’t quite that high!

at the mouth of the Don

Posted: July 13, 2016 in graffiti and street art, locations
Tags: animals, bents, DOn River, ERG, Erica Balon, faces, fish, fox, hand, Janus, Kirsten McCrea, kwest, Love Letter to the Great Lakes, MC Baldassari, mouse, PA system, paint, people, rabbit, raccoon, Rajni Perera, ramps, river, seawalls, spray paint, topless, underpass, women

Today I walked the southern part of the Lower Don River trail. It’s not the most relaxing place to walk even though the path follows the river. I have a habit of absentmindedly meandering and I didn’t want to meander right into a cyclist on the narrow shared path. There was constant background noise from the cars and trucks on the nearby Don Valley Parkway but it was the GO trains that made the most noise as they rumbled right beside me. Yes, you are correct, it’s not my favorite place to walk. But I also knew that there was a reward near the end of the trail.

Near the ‘mouth of the Don River’ (in reality, where the Don River turns into the Keating Channel), there are some new murals on the bents supporting the ramps between the DVP and the Gardiner Expressway. They are part of the Love Letter to the Great Lakes project. A previous blog post, love letters in paint, concerned the murals from this project that were painted near Ossington and Queen West.

below: If you approach the area from the north, this is the first bent that you see. All sides of it have been painted by Kirsten McCrea. If you are driving south on the Don Valley Parkway and you exit to the Gardiner westbound, you drive right over this, and the next few, bents. In case you haven’t guessed, a bent is that concrete support thingy holding up the road.

below: The other side of the McCrea mural is in the background, behind the bent that has been painted by PA System (Patrick Thompson and Alexa Hatanaka). Amongst the swirly watery shapes there is a face near the top. Extra bit: The guy on the bike stopped to take a photo too.

below: The other side of the PA System bent. A large fish fits perfectly in the upper portion while a hand reaches up from the vertical part.

below: The work of MC Baldassari who is currently from Montreal.

below: The other side of the above bent. It looks like the woman has come through the pillar.

below: A woman with a mouse in her hand and a flower in her hair kneels beside the foxes,
a mural painted by EGR (Erica Balon). In the background you can see a much taller bent that has been painted blue. This bent is on a different ramp, the ramp that you would find yourself on if you were driving east on the Gardiner and then exiting to the DVP. It has been painted by Jason Botkin and it includes the word Wonscotanach. Apparently that was the First Nations name for the river before John Graves Simcoe came along in 1790 and decided to call it the Don River.

below: There are more animals on the other sides, along with a city lit up in the night in the background of the mural. Raccoon, rabbit and a pink butterfly fluttering past.

below: Rajni Perera‘s mural features red and yellow women walking or standing in the water.

below: Looking back

below: A collaborative effort by Jarus and Kwest beside the Don Valley trail, just north of the other murals.

below: And one last photo before leaving the area… a quick note sprayed on a concrete support.

pride parade 2016

Posted: July 5, 2016 in events, people
Tags: #firstpride, #proudbecause, #ShareLove, bare, bubbles, community, costumes, dress up, feathers, friendship, glitter, happy, hearts, hugs, kisses, LGBTQ, men, naked, nude, parade, people, pride, smiles, topless, wigs, wings, women

Or rather, pre-Pride parade. The parade route is usually very crowded and this year I decided not walk it. Instead, I mingled with the parade participants who gathered on Bloor Street in preparation for the event. What you’ll find in this blog posts are a lot of pictures of people, people laughing and smiling and enjoying the day. I hope I have captured some of the energy and spirit of the occasion.

below: A temporary rainbow LOVE sign

below: The orange guy from the fruit group!

below: One of the floats parked on Rosedale Valley Road. Toronto in balloons, ready and waiting for the parade to start. The calm before the storm.

below: When I first approached this group, the man in the middle had a rainbow flag in front of him. As I took the picture he flung the flag to his back and hammed it up for the camera. Thanks!

below: These boots are made for walking, but that bike sure looks great!

below: Apparently, wearing large amounts of feathers on your back is quite warm. Not so good on a hot day!

below: The solution – water of course. Super soakers and the spraying of water is a big part of the pride parade.

below: The three coloured Transgender Pride flag – the stereotype colours of light blue for baby boys and light pink for baby girls with a white stripe in the middle for those who identify as neither.

below: #ShareLove wash the hashtag used by Telus and the people on their float. I love the glitter and the purple hearts!

below: Puppets from Kids Help Phone Line make an appearance at the parade with a little help from some friends. The one T-shirt reads “Tell us about your #firstpride”

below: Well, what can I say? It’s Pride.

below: Nonchalantly blowing bubbles. Someone looks unimpressed.

below: I managed to find the saddest person on Bloor Street.

below: Thanks to these two women who showed off their T-shirts for the camera. #ProudBecause was Fido’s campaign for Pride. Each person on the team had a T-shirt like this, and each person had filled in the white rectangles with their personal messages.

below: Spectators waiting. One is keeping cool.

below: The Liberals had a large presence, most of them in red T-shirts. They congregated on Asquith Green early on and there were many in the staging area on Bloor Street. As the world knows, Justin Trudeau walked in the parade with Toronto Mayor John Tory and Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne. As an aside, I may be the only person who didn’t get a photo of Trudeau!

When the parade started, I left Bloor Street, heading south on Ted Rogers Way then back towards the Hayden Street entrance to Bloor subway station. Somewhere along that route (and I can’t remember exactly where) I saw a small group of PC/Tories with their signs walking towards the parade.

below: Tomodachi is Japanese for ‘friends’.

below: The Federation of Canadian Naturists were also walking in the parade.

dyke march 2016

Posted: July 3, 2016 in events, people
Tags: banners, bikes, crochet, cyclists, decorations, diversity, dog, dressed up, dyke, dykes on bikes, leather, LGBT, march, motorcycles, parade, people, pride, protest, rainbow, signs, topless, umbrellas, women

This year’s Dyke March (the 20th!) was an energetic, supportive, and positive celebration once again. It was led as usual by motorcycles and then Dykes on Bikes. Numerous groups and individuals walked and there was a good turnout that lined the sidewalks to watch the parade pass by. Colourful. Joyful.

#pride | #prideTO | #prideToronto

trans rally and march

Posted: July 2, 2016 in events, people
Tags: #lovealwayswins, bi, boas, craft action collective, crochet, flags, gender identity, hearts not parts, LGBT, march, memorial, men, orlando, parade, people, pink, pride, protest, pulse, rabbits, signs, support, traffic, trans, transgendered, whistle, wig, women

The Trans Rally and March, first of the Pride parades was last night (Friday).

below: If you were driving on Yonge street last night, perhaps you got stuck in traffic. Northbound cars on Yonge were stopped to allow the parade to cross from Bloor to Yonge. The parade continued in the southbound lanes which gave the stuck drivers and passengers a front row seat.

Last year it rained for the Trans March and in previous years the turn out was low. Whether it is because trans issues have been in the news a lot lately, or because the trans community is more visible, or because of other reasons, there were more people walking than usual.

below: Dave holding ‘Pulse’ a memorial artwork in honour of those who died at the Pulse nightclub Orlando. The piece was crocheted by Dave and the Craft Action Collective.