street art | as I walk Toronto

Posts Tagged ‘street art’

Water is Life

Posted: October 7, 2021 in alleys, graffiti and street art, locations
Tags: Broadview, Claire Browne, Currents of Change, Eastend Arts, emily may rose, flowers, Frannie Potts, Girls mural camp, glass, Haenahhh, hello kirsten, Julia Prajza, Kirsten McCrea, lake, Memengwaa Kwe Originals, Merryn, Mo Thunder, Moonlight Murals collective, murals, Native Women in the Arts, paint, Queen East, raccoons, river, Riverside, Scarbrite Collective, spray paint, street art, Sylvie, tap, Victoria Day, water, women, Women Paint, Women Paint Riverside

Women Paint Riverside
“Currents of Change”

below: The faucet is on and water pours into a glass. Interesting lively water, full of colours and patterns in this mural by Kirsten McCrea

below: A large mural by Mo Thunder. Follow the link to her website for more information about the mural – a mother and child lying side by side forming the land as water swirls around them.

below: White flowers on a watery blue background by Julia Prajza

below: Invasive species such as phragmites in the Don Valley, by Merryn

below: Rabbit and deer having to contend with out of control greenery, possibly dog-strangling vine. Phragmites are reeds, those tall perennial grasses that grow very tall.

below: Raccoons frolic in the water and raccoons sit by the shore. Even one raccoon spray painting a rock, naughty raccoon! Mural by Emily May Rose.

below: by Haenahhh. Arms around each other

below: Hands reaching out in a mural by Claire Browne,

below: Victoria Day‘s mural – what looks a bit like a blue water serpent but is actually a dragon flying high above us in the sky.

below: In the pink is written, “A persistent drop of water will wear away the hardest stone.”

below: by Scarbrite Collective (brightening the streets of Scarborough), aka Frannie Potts and Sylvie with help from Memengwaa Kwe Originals aka Caterina.

below: Love not hate. A blue raccoon stealthily walks across a roof above a mural that was painted by participants in this year’s Girls Mural Camp (a three week program in the summer for teenage girls).

below: The other part of the Girls Mural Camp project.

below: by Moonlight Murals Collective

below: Three heads that seem wrapped by a fish, mural by Cedar Eve

below: Eyes closed

below: The Girls Mural Camp 2020 mural is in the same alley.

NOTE: There is also an installation by monicaonthemoon on the back of the Broadview Hotel that is part of this project but I have given it a separate blog post – Hands, Florests, and Minds.

With support from:

Eastend Arts

Women Paint

Native Women in the Arts (NWIA)

Riverside BIA

StreetARToronto

paste platz

Posted: September 24, 2021 in graffiti and street art
Tags: Alan Williamson, Alina Chirila, Anne Milne, Bill_L47, Bruho, City Kitty, crkshnk, graffiti, Jeremy Lynch, jumblefacefoto, las mujeres vampiro, meme, Merlin Boissonneault, paper, paste, paste platz, paste ups, Rako Duarte, rudy, shock G, sketchrat, street art, tbonez, tsmoke, urban ninja squadron, visual noise, wheat paste, wheatpaste

Covering the exterior walls of a small empty building on the corner of Charlotte and Adelaide West is a collection of images. This project, Paste Platz, is the work of Jeremy Lynch. He asked some instagram users (artists, graffiti artists, photographers, etc ) if they wanted to contribute images. He then printed pictures the pictures and created the scene you see below. I haven’t tried to identify which pieces were provided by which artist; instead, I have made a list of the contributors at the bottom of this post along with a link to their instagram pages. If you have been following this blog, you will recognize some of the street art. But a lot of it should be new!

Full disclosure – some of my pictures from my recent “Little Red Trike” series were included. I brought it with me for a little photoshoot.

This site was revisited, and more photos taken, late in November: paste platz revisited

Contributors

Alan Williamson

Alina Chirila

Anna

Anne Milne (aka Colouring Book)

and my instagram page too

Cabbagetown graffiti and street art

Posted: May 26, 2021 in graffiti and street art
Tags: cabbagetown, cat, Colin Tea, eyes, faces, graffiti, lovebot, monster, murals, paint, paste up, raccoon, slaps, stickers, street art, T-bonez, Timmy Drift, TTC, urban ninja squadron

below: A new TTC streetcar on a Toronto street, a mural by Colin Tea

below: Another Colin Tea mural, a larger than life raccoon looms over a city neighbourhood

below: CN Tower and Toronto skyline on a very blue sky

below: A Tokyo Meow

below: Lovebot and the city beside a woman in square glasses and black flats.

below: Two faces, one in better shape than the other

below: Another drawing paste-up that is peeling around the edges. They are rather intriguing and I wish that I had seen them when they were whole.

below: T-bonez as the boy wonder, Urban Ninja Squadron

below: T-bonez with Timmy Drift

below: Horny and green with big white teeth

below: Email God – church’s closed, 2021

below: You are not your mistakes

save the foundry

Posted: May 13, 2021 in graffiti and street art, history
Tags: corktown, Dominion Wheel Foundries, Doug Ford, foundry, hearts, heritage, hoardings, politics, posters, protest, redevelopment, save the foundry, stencils, street art

I read in the news this morning that the graffiti and artwork on the hoardings around the old foundry site in Corktown/Canary District are being painted over now. I had previously mentioned some of the stencils and posters that we here when I first saw them back in February. Unfortunately I am a bit behind on my posts so I haven’t uploaded the pictures that I took on a subsequent visit to the area…. here they are now. This is what is being painted over today:

below: “The history that is represented in this era of globalization is very important not to bulldoze”
“I want to save the Foundry because the buildings lend character to an area that is being made more and more bland every day.”
Meanwhile Doug Ford can’t keep his hands off Toronto City Hall.

below: “Municipal Destruction Minister Steve Clark screws up plans for A-Ford-A-Bull-Housing.”

below: Why Doug? Why?

below: “Dear Doug Ford: Let us fix this for you.”

metal screwed to wood

Posted: April 10, 2021 in graffiti and street art
Tags: metal, Rocky Zenyk, street art, words

First, a quick Latin translation lesson
1. Ad perniciem solet agi sinceritas is Latin for “Honesty is often goaded to ruin”, a quote from Phaedrus
2. Bibere venenum in auro, another Latin phrase and it means “drink poison from a gold cup”.
3. Fortuna caeca est translates to “Fortune is blind.” from Cicero (died 43 BC, he was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, and philosopher who wrote extensively).
4. Pulvis et umbraa sumus equals “We are dust and shadow” from Horace (died 8 B.C., a Roman poet)
5. Graviora manent – greater dangers await, or the worst is yet to come

These Latin words, and more, were all found here:

below: A closer view

All of the following were on the same utility pole surrounded by a lot of old staples and tacks.

below: A crown with 12 + 1 + 1/2 = 13 1/2 fastened with an 8 point, or double square, screw.

below: Another 13 1/2, this time with with PJD and a fountain at the top of a building

below: Similar architecture is repeated in the next piece, but now it is a taller building with more than a fountain on top – it looks like a pineapple, or a grenade with fireworks.

below: In memory of Dudley George who died at Ipperwash, shot by the OPP. I’m not sure if it was intentional or not, but the screws resemble bullet holes.

below: The domed building appears to be upside down. The rain drops are “falling” the wrong way. Is that symbolic? Or because only one screw is holding it in place and it slipped?

below: It’s difficult to see, but there are a lot of words on the light metal piece too, but not in Latin. There is also a bird whose feathers are made from Us and Vs.

below: “I loved you” is written on the side of the piece of metal. You’ll have to take my word for it, but the other side of the metal says “Too little too late”.

below: And last, just a plain X. Unfortunately, it’s like someone who signs their name by making an X as I have no idea whose artwork this is. Do you know?

And let’s hope that the worst is not yet to come!

north of the Keating Channel

Posted: March 10, 2021 in history, locations, old buildings, transportation, waterfront
Tags: British American Oil, concrete, DVP, electricity, Gardiner Expressway, history, Keating channel, Lakeshore Blvd., pipes, Port Lands, ramp, street art, water

The other day, later in the afternoon, I was driving along the Lakeshore when I noticed that perfect lighting on the south side of the Keating Channel. I’ve done blog posts about the Port Lands development but I hadn’t looked at it from the other side. A quick change of plans – a parking spot nearby and a walk along the Lakeshore. This is some of what I saw that day.

below: At the bottom of Cherry Street

below: At the corner of Cherry and Lakeshore.

below: Along the Lakeshore, looking south towards Port Lands at Cherry.

below: The Gardiner curves slightly northward as it aligns with the Keating Channel. Lakeshore Blvd takes a wider turn and comes out from under the Gardiner for a few brief moments before slipping back under as both roads parallel the channel.

below: On the south side of Lakeshore, there is no sidewalk here but the grassy area is wide enough…..

below: Walking here offers a different view of the Port Lands. The “smokestack” on the right is the old Hearn Generating station.

below: Some of the buildings that remain on Villiers Street.

below: Panorama of Keating Channel being developed, 1916, before there was much on the Port Lands and Cherry Street was just a one lane dirt road.

below: Keating Channel, 1916

The original plan for the diversion of the Don River called for a more curved mouth of the river before it joined the Keating Channel. But the British American Oil Company who owned the land fought that idea. Instead, the 90 degree turn that still exists today was built to avoid crossing B/A property.

below: A few years after the channel was upgraded (1934)… From vacant land to a forest of BA oil tanks. There are railway tracks along the edge of the channel. From Wikipedia: “In 1908, with 8 shareholders, B/A built Canada’s third refinery on 3 acres on the eastern waterfront in Toronto. The company refined imported crude oil and its main product was kerosene; a then-useless by-product was gasoline, which was dumped into a swamp.”

Photo by Arthur Beales. Toronto Port Authority Archives, PC 1/1/10769. Found at Wikimedia Common

below: BA refinery with the Don River on the right, 1931. There were still storage tanks here in the 1960s when the city was building the Gardiner Expressway.

1931 photograph, vintage, black and white, of British American oil refinery just north of the Keating Channel and just west of the Don River,

Photo source: Library and Archives Canada, online

below: This rusty “fence” isn’t going to hold anyone or anything back. I had visions of tumbling into the icy channel if I went near it. I think that just looking at it made it wobble.

below: There are still places to tie up your boat

below: A big tap? It’s attached to a pipeline but is it functional? (It doesn’t look like it). There is a lot of infrastructure buried under the Lakeshore, sewer lines, water mains, electricals, etc., but this looks like a piece of history. Pleased correct me if I’m wrong! Also – if you plan to explore here, there are stretches where the only option is to walk right beside the road.

below: Likewise, the box structure is probably there to protect the rest – but what are they? Valves of some kind?

below: Looking north to Canary District and West Don Lands development. The oil tanks are long gone.

below: Looking up from Lakeshore, under both the Gardiner and the ramp from the DVP

below: Looking west from Don Roadway along the Keating Channel to the new Cherry Street bridge.

below: Intersection of Lakeshore and Don Roadway.

below: Two metal transmission towers standing side by side. Geometrical, straight lines, yet lace-like.

below: From the Don Roadway, northbound and homeward

Sandown Lane, Cliffside

Posted: February 13, 2021 in alleys, graffiti and street art, locations
Tags: alley, B.C. Johnson, Cliffside, elephant, heritage, history, Kingston Road, lane, lion, murals, nature, old car, Sandown Lane, Scarborough, Shrine of the Little Flower, street art, wildlife

Sandown Lane runs behind the buildings on the north side of Kingston Road, west of Midland Avenue in Scarborough.

I was walking here because I was on the lookout for a series of murals by B.C. Johnson that have been painted over the past few years.

B.C. Johnson is the person responsible for first painting the rainbow arch beside the Don Valley Parkway – way back in the 1970’s. I blogged about the Moccasin Trail, which leads to the arch, last year. Just in case you’ve never seen it, here it is from last fall:

Back to Sandown Lane….

below: A deer with large antlers, a man fishing.

below: Sunflowers and butterflies by the gate on a (real) door.

below: Waterfalls

below: That’s an inventive way to advertise your handyman business!

While I was in the area, I walked back along Kingston Road.

I have walked this portion of Kingston Road before. There are many large Mural Routes paintings of historic Scarborough scenes. They can be seen in the 2017 blog post, Cliffside murals, so I won’t repeat them here except for this one photo: ‘H.M. Schooner, Onondaga c. 1793’ by Jeff Jackson 1992.

below: Back in 2017 this was a sushi restaurant and it was covered on all four sides by ‘Let’s Take a Walk on the Wildside’ painted by B.C. Johnson the year previously. Some of the scenes from that mural can be same in the same Cliffside blog post linked to above.

below: Tara Inn, the Irish Pub, beside the Banglabazar Supermarket.

below: St Pauls United Church, near the west end of Sandown Lane.

below: A Roman Catholic church, Saint Theresa, Shine of the Little Flower at Midland and Kingston Road. The church was built in 1966 to replace a smaller one, also built in a Spanish style, from 1933. The Church was dedicated as a Shrine in honour of St Therese of Lisieux, a saint who had been canonized in 1925.

UPDATE:

Two developments on Kingston Road will impact this stretch of the lane. First, an 8 storey mixed use building at 2448-2450 (the Cat Hospital) as well as a slightly shorter 6 storey mixed use development at 2380-2382 (a vacant lot, Wongs Martial Arts). Both developments have had their site plans approved at city council.

love and little characters in Graffiti Alley

Posted: January 23, 2021 in graffiti and street art, locations
Tags: Bentoghoul, daisies, daisy, feelings boi, flower power, graffiti, Graffiti Alley, life, LifeC, paste ups, Psiconauta, slaps, spudbomb, stencil, stickers, street art, T-bonez, T-smoke, TCF, urban ninja squadron, visual noise

below: Dynamic Duo so to speak, a T-bonez Robin to a Batman of a different sort.

below: A collection of stickers and pastups – urban ninja squadron (TCF), spud, a blue Bentoghoul, and others

below: There is love in this lane

as well as broken hearts

below: Playing games with Psiconauta on a pole while the little purple figure gives a peace sign.

below: T-bonez clad in pink and red with T-smoke on his back.

below: Stay warm folks!

below: …. and a spudbomb too

below: Flower Power. Many daisies by Life© popping up in Graffiti Alley (or at least they look like daisies). “Consciousness watching the world”.

below: Until next time… keep your eyes open!

a long time lingering

Posted: December 15, 2020 in graffiti and street art, locations
Tags: defaced, demolition, empty, falling down, graffiti, John Brown, Spadina, staircase, street art, tag

This view was captured while walking north up Spadina towards Baldwin. It’s a much quieter street these days and looking a little forlorn.

At the southwest corner of Baldwin & Spadina the hoardings around 374 Spadina are still there. They seem to have been there forever now. Once again the site has been sold, if the internet is to be believed. Apparently, there is an OMB (Ontario Municipal Board) approved plan for a two storey restaurant there. I wondered how long that has been on the books so I googled it – early 2007.

Last spring this wall was painted as a tribute to Andre Alexander, aka Hip Pop Art who died in October 2018. Small pieces remain.

The hoardings around that site, along with the covered sidewalk along the south side of Baldwin have been tje canvas for an ever changing selection of posters and artwork. The other day it was this circular piece by John Brown that was tacked to one section of the wall.

In case you’ve always wondered what was behind those hoardings…. Some demolition has occurred as the fire damaged, water damaged, and destroyed just through neglect parts have mostly been removed.

back to the alleyway of dreams

Posted: November 17, 2020 in alleys, graffiti and street art
Tags: Against all odss, alley, alleyway of dreams, bee, Bee Haven, birds, collage, Curtia Wright, Elie Saad, flower pot, garages, graffiti, growing, lane, Mediah, mural, murals, plant, pug, rhino, rhinoceros, Sarah Van Dusen, street art, swan, tiger, words

Recently I was in the area east of Danforth and Main when I had one of those moments where I stop and say to myself “I’ve been here before”. I recognized some of the street art in the lane (see Alleyway of Dreams, 2016). For this blog post, I have started with the artwork that I didn’t remember on the assumption that it is newer. The murals that remain from 2016 all seem to be in good shape.

below: A collage of pictures called “Against All Odds” in the shape of a map.

below: On the same wall as the above is this mural of a swan. My apolgies to Alika, Angela, Dylan, Molly, Serval, Bandi, Ludo and Weal (?) whose names I chopped off. To the right of the swan, and behind a parked car is a piece by Mediah.