Posts Tagged ‘window’

halls transformed

Posted: March 1, 2017 in galleries
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There are four exhibitions at The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery at the moment.

One of the exhibits is “A Wall is just a Wall” by Kapwani Kiwanga. Here, a hallway has been transformed with pink and blue lights. If you walk down this hall, you’ll find an entranceway to another section of the gallery with more of Kiwanga’s work. The gist of the thought behind her exhibit is the affect that architecture and design (such as colour) has on the behaviour of those exposed to it.   It’s a bit disconcerting to walk through the lights – they affect your perception of space and make you feel a bit dizzy.  Or at least that’s what happened to me!

a hallway is lit in pink and blue lighting, covers all walls and ceiling too

Another hall.  Another exhibit.  This time, an installation by Latifa Echakhch called “Cross Fade”.   You can see it in the Fleck Clerestory which is the long, high hallway that runs down the middle of the building.  For the installation, the walls were painted light blue with white cloud shapes.  Chunks of the outer layer of plaster were then removed and pieces left on the floor.    The sky is falling!  I can just see Chicken Little running around.  The sky is falling!  But in this case, he’d be right.

When I first saw the installation, I only saw the lower portion and I assumed that it was a neglected wall.  It looks like many of the walls you find in lanes and alleys.  To me it represented the cycle of building and decay that plays out all around us.   I struggle with the idea that painting it to look like the sky changes how the piece should be perceived.  Are we supposed to be upset that the sky is broken and lying on the ground?  Is the use of the normal (plaster falling off a neglected wall) to try to show the abnormal (the sky falling apart) on purpose?  If so, to what purpose?

high walls in a narrow room, walls covered with plaster and painted light blue with clouds, some of the plaster is peeling away and it's supposed to look like the sky is falling . a large window is at the end of the room

below: Looking up towards the skylights.   It is more apparent from this angle that the walls are painted to look like the sky.   By the way, cross fade is the technique in sound or movie editing  where a picture or sound gradually appears at the same time as another disappears.

looking upwards to a skylight two storeys above, the walls of the narrow room (hall) are covered with plaster and painted light blue with clouds, some of the plaster is peeling away and it's supposed to look like the sky is falling

From the online description of the exhibit:  “…. Cross Fade evokes the remains of an action that has already taken place. Echakhch’s wall painting of the sky appears to be falling apart. Fragments of the sky still exist intact on the upper sections of the walls, out of reach, reminding us of its beauty. However, large parts of the sky lie on the ground, creating a peculiar feeling that something beyond our control is either happening or has just happened. The technique employed here references the classical fresco, a second skin that usually leads the viewer into a painted world, a trompe-l’œil, rendering the two-dimensionality of the wall invisible. On the contrary, Echakhch’s work shatters this illusion, rooting us in the present, which like a cross fade, is caught between the past and the future.”

 

Leaving the hall theme behind, the last two exhibits are:

below:  Part of “On Fishes, Horses and Man”  by Jonathas de Andrade

a room in an art gallery filled with posters of men hanging from the ceiling at various levels. All have the words museu do homem do noreste

below:  And “The One Who Keeps on Giving” by Maria Hupfield

art installation on a gallery ceiling of many light bulbs of different shapes and sizes hanging from a piece of wood on cords of different, but short, lengths.

All exhibits continue until mid May.

doors and more

Posted: February 24, 2017 in doors
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I thought that I would see if I could find door pictures today.  When I first stepped outside, I wasn’t sure what that meant.   I just knew that it was a beautiful day and that I would find an answer to my doorish quest.   “Que sera sera” as Doris Day once sang.

Well, what is a door?

door: noun.  A hinged, sliding, or revolving barrier at the entrance to a building, room, or vehicle, or in the framework of a cupboard.

doorway: noun. An entrance to a room or building through a door.

Well duh, I think most of us know what a door is, at least in the literal sense.   As an image just a door on its own is often blah, B O R I N G.   There are exceptions of course, but if that was all I was looking for today, I wouldn’t be taking many pictures.

an ornate double door with windows in both doors, red brick house, stairs to the doors. closed.

I also think that most of us realize that “door” is so much more.   We find them intriguing. Door metaphors abound.  Open doors are opportunities and invitations, think “My door is always open”, or  “When one door closes, another one opens”.  Closed doors are mysteries, obstacles, or dead ends.   We talk about not knowing what goes on behind closed doors.

below: Closed for good. No mystery here, just a dead end.
With a smile for being upside down.

the front door of a small apartment complex that is about to be demolished. There is a blue metal fence in front of it with a danger due to demolition sign on it. The sign is upside down.

A closing door has a slightly different imagery – “slam the door in his face”, or “show someone the door”, or “don’t let the door hit you on the way out”.   Can you picture the scene in a movie where the hero walks into a strange room only to have the door close behind him.  Can you see the look on his face when he hears it being locked from the other side?

Doors, and their cousins gates, are both entrances and exits.    Entrances to buildings and rooms.  Entrances to other worlds such as “at death’s door”.  Unfortunately I don’t have a picture to illustrate ‘entrances to other worlds’.  

below: But maybe this entranceway leads to something exotic?    That’s a better explanation than ‘someone went to Home Depot and bought lots of cheap corrugated plastic’.   It juts out like a sore thumb from an otherwise well maintained, nice looking house.

an old brick house painted turquoise with green trim. wrought iron fence in front. A corrugated plastic covering has been made to cover the entrance to the basement door. the covering comes out from the house to beyond the fence, all the way to the sidewalk

Doors are associated with privacy, protection, and control.   We feel more secure when we lock our doors.   Closed doors, especially locked ones, can keep things in or keep things out.  Closed doors separate, open doors connect.

below: Waiting at the door.   I can’t decide if he’s patient or impatient.  Perhaps bored?

a white metal door on a white concrete wall. A bright ornage line drawing of a man standing in front of the door with his arms crossed.

 

Back doors are private, hidden from view.  The expression “through the back door” suggests sneaking around.  Front doors are part of the face that we show the world.   They can be welcoming or not, a lot like the people who live behind them. 

below: Or they can just be a long way up.  How are your knees feeling today?

a small narrow one storey house. Many steps to get up the hill to the front door. The incline has been covered with patio stones.

side yard and side entrance to a wood clapboard house with one window on the side at ground level.

below: A bright red chair brightens the picture.   I wonder who usually sits there?

a bright red chair sits on the sidewalk beside the entrance to a building. The door has a large window which is covered by a curtain on the inside

below: Another bit of cheerful red.

a small house painted blue with white trim, a bright red door.

“There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile,
He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile;
He bought a crooked cat which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together in a little crooked house.”

crooked concrete steps and metal railing lead to a front door.

below: Another closed door waiting for demolition.
How many people have passed through those doors since 1913?

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below: I’ve always been fascinated by the sign above this door.

an older woman in a bright red jacket stands on a corner waiting for a green light. On the other side of the street is the Emerald Isle Seniors Society

below: This door seemed to be out of place on the Danforth… it’s an entrance to the apartment above, not to the hair salon on the left.   I like to think that she keeps watch over the doorway.

blog_etched_glass_beauty_salon

below: These two doors (especially the green one) caught my eye as I walked along the Danforth.   On my first pass I had the wrong lens on my camera.  After changing lenses, I doubled back.   Just as I was getting ready to take a picture of the two doors together, the one on the right opened.  Dilemma – to shoot or not to shoot.  I’m not brazen enough to shoot someone in the face so to speak; this over the shoulder and hope it works shot is only second rate (or third!).   I only include here so I can briefly go off on a tangent and mention my #1 problem with door shots.  People.   Pointing my camera at someone’s house often makes me feel uncomfortable and I have no desire to have any kind of confrontation, even a friendly one.

two doors, one faded green and one greyish black . a man with a rather large stomach is standing in front of the latter.

below: What to do with leftover tiles.

a door with 1242 on it, brownish colour, green door frame, the wall on one side is covered with small mosaic tiles in squares

below: A contrast in colours.  The door is in the picture but it’s become just an element in the composition.

a green door is beside a large store window. The interior wall is painted yellow, the sun is shining in the window and the blinds are partially open and partially down

below: This is the last of the Danforth door photos that I took today.   Again, the doors are just elements; the mailboxes provide the focus and the interest.

three black mailboxes with mail in them, between a white door and a black door.

below: Doors are part of a building.   What you can do with a door is often limited by the structure of the house.

a small white house with a large tree in front of it, winter, but no snow

Having said that,  if you walk around the city there is a lot of variety.  Don’t worry, I’m not going to go through all the permutations and combinations that I saw today!  I’ll limit myself to a few (sometimes I can do that!).

below: A few stone steps lead to a simple white entrance.

a red brick house with a white rectangular doorway. driveway beside the house leads to a garage with a white door.

below: A study in compare and contrast – the wonderful result of semis where next door neighbours with dissimilar tastes, habits, and decorating ideas share a common wall.

a semi divided house, on the left, a bright yellow door. On the right, an open porch with lots of clutter.

Many steps and many hours later I find myself nearing the end of this post.  It’s been a bit of a ramble, both in the route that I walked today and in the thought processes that helped create this post.    I hope that I have entertained you at least a little bit.    And with one final photo I will close the door on this post.    Last one out turns out the lights.  Adios.

looking down a street to an T-intersection. Two houses across the intersection with a large truck parked in front of them. A man is sitting in the truck and looking at the camera

“Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn’t know you left open.”  John Barrymore

same, same, but different

Posted: July 8, 2016 in locations
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A week or so ago I explored a lot of little alleys and lanes in Seaton village.  Once upon a time it was a village, named for John Colborne, 1st Baron Seaton, who was Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada from 1828 to 1836.  The land here was originally settled and farmed by loyalists Colonel David Shank and Captain Samuel Smith.   Eventually, George Crookshank acquired the property and he laid out the plans for a village here in the 1850’s; it wasn’t developed until around 1888 when the area was annexed by the City of Toronto.

Today it is the rectangular section of Toronto north of Bloor street to the CNR train tracks by Dupont and between Bathurst and Christie streets.  It is part of The Annex.

When I started to write this blog post my plan was to focus on how all lanes are the same yet different.  Their characteristics usually reflect the neighbourhood around them and the way the lanes are used.  Every lane has a personality.

below: Vermouth Lane, one of the greenest lanes I’ve seen in Toronto.  Why?  Probably because there are no garages in the lane, except for the two that were beside me when I took this picture.  The backyards that are on this lane are not big.  There are one or two houses that have made room in their backyard for a car, but that takes up most of the space.  The lane itself is also rather narrow.

a lane with old wood fences and a lot of green, trees, weeds, ivy on the fences, shrubs beside the lane. narrow lane

below: In contrast,  Col David Shank Lane (there’s that name again!) ends at a wide alley behind the stores and services on Dupont.  It’s a working alley.

wide lane behind Dupont Street in Toronto, an old car is parked there, back of an auto repair shop, sturdy looking two storey brick buildings.

But that’s only stating the obvious, isn’t it?

On a brown metal door, a white line drawing of a grinning face with many teeth and semi circular eyes

Like the city around them, lanes are a mix of old and new, interesting and bland, plus well kept and neglected.

from a lane, two garages, a wood fence painted faded green between the garages, the tops of the houses can be seen behind.

They are the less public side of city life.

backyard, and back of an old building that has been boarded up. The ashphalt shingles on the back of the building are torn , there is a graffiti face painted on one wall

below: As I looked for things that make alleys different, I kept finding little details like the old blue plant pot with its contrasting orange wall.

A planter in blues and blacks with a partially dead and drooping plant sits beside an old wall that has been painted bright orange. The wall behind the plant is brown.

below: The textures and bright colours in the design made by aging paint on a garage door caught my eye.

part of red garage with paint starting to peel where blue lines have been sprayed on.

below: A vegetable garden dominates the backyard.

the back of a house and its backyard which has been planted with a vegetable garden.

below: A simple plant in a window in Tandy Murch Lane.  Walter Tandy Murch (1907-1967) was a painter who was born and raised in the area.  His mother, Louise Murch (nee Tandy), was a popular singing teacher

white door on white wall. Someone has drawn a window on the door with a plant in the window. Bottom of wall is red, three black horizontal stripes on the wall, one vertical blue pipe on the left side

below: Through a hole in the wood, a glimpse of what lies beyond.

an old wood fence, unpainted, rusty nails, with a hole in it. Looking through the hole is part of a window but it's out of focus

below:  Abandoned plumbing fixtures lead to all kinds of jokes – outdoor plumbing

a white toilet, with a lid, sitting beside a yellow painted brick wall with weeds growing up beside the toilet, in a lane

below: A once proud tree

a big dead tree with the tops of the branches cut off, in a backyard, view from the lane behind, including the three storey building on the property

below: A garage door that stands alone and not in a row with others.

an old garage at the end of a backyard of a small white house, lane view, chainlink fence, well kept lawn, no trespassing signs, signs saying pick up after your pet, five signs in all,

below: Possibly a Rorschach test?  A brown face is what I see.  Do you?

a brown stencil of a man's face on a wood fence but the paint was a bit heavily applied and there are some paint blobs

below: And another test – can you find the paintbrush?
Not sure how it got there!  Or how it’s staying there!

a used paintbrush is lying under the eaves of an old shed that is a mottled pale green and pale blue, branches of a tree and its leaves partially block the paint brush from view

below: This could become a game.  An “I Spy” kind of game.  I spy a face.

part of an old blue garage beside part of an old reddish and green garage, the shape of the faded paint on the blue, looks like a ghostly face

below: Or perhaps we could play peek-a-boo?

looking through the gap between two garages in a lane, into a backyard with a chair on the lawn, and a ladder and steps that look like a ladder up to a door at the second storey level

And this is where I am going to leave you…. until another day when I walk more lanes and find more little details, more differences, to make me smile.  And then we’ll play again!

The End

close up of a wood pole beside a white garage. Written in capital letters, black ink, is the word Amen

lazing on a sunny afternoon

Posted: May 19, 2016 in people, public art
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Spring is in the air. 

the word love is written in lights in capital letters in a window of a store. Reflected in the window is a group of older people sitting on benches across from the window

A young man is lying on a bench in the Toronto peace garden, the words of which are written beside him, metal inlay in the stone on the ground.

people sitting and standing in an alley, one man is on his cellphone, tall buildings on either side of the lane as well as at the end of the lane

A woman in black high heel shoes is sitting on a low stone wall outside. You can only see her from the thigh down. He legs are crossed at the ankle.

three people sitting outside, two men who are talking together and a woman who is sitting on her own, they are in a square and are surrounded by tall glass buildings, half in shadow and half in light

a young man is lying in the the O of the Toronto 3D sign. The O is orange, you can't see the man's face but you can see one red shoe and his light coloured pant leg.

blog_resting_O_toronto3D_sign

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people sitting on benches amongst the tulips and birch trees of the peace garden at Nathan Phillips Square

Two people sitting at the base of Henry Moore's 'Archer' sculpture at Nathan Phillips Square. One man is eating and the other is reading.

I’ll be lazing on a sunny
lazing on a sunny
lazing on a sunny afternoon.
(with apologies to Queen)

beep beep

Posted: February 9, 2015 in graffiti and street art
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Wile E. Coyote is still chasing the roadrunner…..
right out of Looney Tunes and onto a wall in a Toronto lane.

street art painting of Wile E. Coyote from the looney tunes cartoon. He has a smug look on his face and he is holding a lit stick of dynamite.

street art painting of the Looney Tunes cartoon character the roadrunner. He is running past a window on a brick building.

 

slaps in the alley

Posted: July 14, 2014 in graffiti and street art
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In a small alley running behind the south side of College St., west of Bathurst, we discovered a large number of sticker graffiti pieces.

 

brown brick wall with a window that has been boarded over and painted the same brown colour. In the window, and on the window frame, are a large number of sticker graffiti pieces.

once it was a window, now it is a canvas of sorts

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close up of some of the stickers that are in the window. One has words on it that asks if you have thanked yourself for persevering. Another is a red lizard with the words No Pipelines written on it, and another is a dog that is licking socks.

persevering thank you very much, while the dog licks the socks

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A woman wearing a light purple cloth over the lower part of her face is holding a large white sign with the letter A inside a circle on it. Beside her is a large purple flower. Both are sticker.

partially obscured with purple and purple flower

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An assortment of some of the stickers. These are the ones that were on the top part of the window. A person wearing a balaclava, a black haired girl with the lower part of her face covered in black, an outline drawing of a rabbit,

I did what I could with this photo as it was taken looking upward into the shadows of the window. Strange angle too – being much taller might have helped!

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A black and white sticker on a yellow pole. The words on the sticker say Rad Brad. It is weird looking two legged creature.

Rad Brad hanging out on a yellow pole

******

stuck on behind Bathurst

Posted: June 9, 2014 in graffiti and street art, locations
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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.

 

A window space in a brick wall that was covered over a long time ago. Now there are tags and stickers covering the space as well as graffiti on the walls around the space.

It used to be a window, now it is an ever changing canvas.

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black and white line drawing that looks like something you'd create with spirograph

spirograph on the metal pole.

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four stickers on a wall. One is a mask that looks either African or BC First Nations. One is a hairy dog like creature with a long tongue that is licking a red strawberry with legs. One has the word 'decolonize' on it along with a picture of a group of men. The last sticker is just the word 'phi-nite' with a symbol.

strawberry man gets licked by dog, a mask looks at you, decolonize and phi-nite, all in a small space

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two stickers on a tag & scribble covered space. One sticker is a silhouette of a man on a skateboard. He has large wings coming out of his back. Ths other sticker is a greenish colour geometric design within a greyish white circle.

have wings, will skateboard

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a purple and white sticker that has been defaced by the tag 'calzone'. Beside it is a sticker that says 'decolonize history' with a mug shot of a man.

calzone tag unfortunately scribbled on top.

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five stickers on the back of a metal sign.

Billy and friends

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black ink on brown paper graffiti of a woman's head & shoulders

brown girl on the wall

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two stickers on a wall. One is the head of a blue cat. The other is a lacey looking circular design.

blue cat with lace

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Someone has placed a red & white circular sticker over the iris of an eye that is part of a black and white eye graffiti picture

red eye

*****

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