This is where it's at!

Yes, this is where it's at! It's also over there. The graffiti that you can find around Toronto can be pretty amazing. This profile of a guy's head reminds me of USSR worker posters. It's time to step up production. worker heads of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your head.

Oh yeah, it's also under here.

Creativity in Kensington Market

The wilds of Kensington Market beckon people into one of the must see neighbourhoods of Toronto. The small area of only a few streets always seems untamed, full of life and art. Street cafes and patios mingle with studios and fruit and vegetable markets.

Orbital Arts

Graffiti and bright colours fill most of the walls and alleys and on the warm summer day I found an ice cream truck by Bellevue Square Park (which was full of water - the first time that I have seen it like that).

The famous car micro-park installation, known as the community vehicular reclamation project, continues to grow as it sits along the curb.

See more pictures of Kensington Market after the jump.

LOVE on the beach

'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all (Alfred Lord Tennyson).' And the sign on the hydro pole at Cherry Beach does say LOVE. Then in stencil there is 'Gregory Alan Elliot', artist and poet.

I think he sometimes is a little wordy, like this time, halfway through the poem I almost fell asleep. He needs to keep focused and on target, maybe just use symbols instead of those big words of his. And does he have to scream LOVE, can't it be love, gentle and sweet. The other issue is that it looks like an official traffic sign - disobey and face a fine, demerit points and possibly a crash.  That is why several people dropped to the ground and made LOVE right there.

Trinity Bellwoods Park: I miss you

I was out walking yesterday and then I thought of you. Hi, I miss you, then I remembered this sign found in Trinity Bellwoods Park tennis courts so I am not sure if someone threw a tennis ball and missed or they truly miss you. Someone had used heavy string to spell out their feelings in large block letters.

Rickshaws and Gold Bikes in Toronto

Rickshaws continue to be pulled around the downtown core and along the waterfront of Toronto. Due to the high cost of gas I was thinking of getting me one of those eco modes of transportation and giving up GO Transit to get into work, but damn, those things don't pull themselves.

I also found that Toronto is going upscale, the pink bikes are now going gold. Well, we are moving on up - that or James Bond's Goldfinger is in town and getting healthy. You can just see the pink bike further down Yonge Street in the picture above.

I wonder if we are going to see television commercials screaming "We buy your gold bikes - working, broken, we don't care, just bring in your unused gold bikes and get top dollar cash for your unloved gold bike."

Pink Bikes of Toronto

The pink bikes have survived the wrath of the City and have multiplied. I think they bring some much needed vibrancy to the downtown core and they don't mark up anyone's walls. This one is on Yonge Street.

Now you can even find gold bikes in Toronto.

Silver Elvis on black velvet

Silver Elvis was on station outside the Eaton Centre, shaking the pelvis and being all reflecty. At the same time - the same time I say, there was an artist painting Silver Elvis on a what could only resemble black velvet (I don't know if this is the artist of the famous dogs playing poker painting) using Silver Elvis' silver guitar - the paintbrush was attached to the end of the guitar.

Kittens and the man on the wall

Kitten on a pole for box of kittens on a boat. A poster of a man peels gently on the brick supports of a park covered picnic area down in Coronation Park.

Graffiti demonstration at Yonge Street

There was a graffiti artist giving a demonstration on a large white canvas at the intersection of Yonge and Dundas in Toronto today. I like to think that the white canvas was actually cut from a building and will soon be stapled back in place.

And as a bonus here is a panorama of the comings and goings of the intersection while the paint was being sprayed.

Giant Toronto Inuksuk

This giant Toronto Inuksuk came together along Lake Shore Boulevard, just beside Ontario Place, in celebration of World Youth Day in 2002. The stone structure is a landmark made for various purposes and has come to symbolize the vast northern territories of Canada and it's peoples that live in the harsh lands.

I post the photo in celebration of our friend Goretti Kakuktinniq from Rankin Inlet. Goretti works with the Nunavut Development Corporation (NDC) and she recently went to Paris to promote Inuit art.

Trash

Toronto ships it's trash elsewhere and the big city is currently looking at contracting out garbage collection. A lot of our trash is in the streets, taped to poles in every growing diameters. We could save money by just putting up a simple frame for just about everything, later the poster people would glue and tape on the structure, from phone booths to buildings, nothing is to big for the poster people.

Hockey Hall of Fame

I haven't actually gone into the Hockey Hall of Fame, I think it is because that if it has stuff from when the Leafs were any good I wouldn't want to be around all those dusty antiques! They do have a beautiful building with a great location at Yonge and Front Streets and they also have a 17 foot bronze statue titled 'Our Game' by Edie Parker in front of the building.

'Our Game' bronze sculpture.

Chalk in the streets

As the temperatures warm up the buskers return to the streets of Toronto. Outside the Eaton Centre at Yonge and Dundas a chalk artist starts a large drawing on the sidewalk as even the pigeons gather for a view of the bright, colourful art.

Banksy in the alley

Banksy's Toronto graffiti still survives, barely, in a few places. Luckily he picked the right alley on Church Street because the building next door looks like it is coming down, while the second one away is down - done like dinner, nothing left but the splinters.

I was surprised to see that the Church Street Keg Restaurant has moved out of it's old building and into a new home on The Esplanade. I worked in that Keg for one night covering their staff party night - that's right I used to work for the Keg (Mississauga (the old Dixie-Dundas Keg) and the Brampton (the old downtown Brampton Keg)). Sadly, I just noticed that all my old Keg Restaurants are gone! I met and married my wife when we worked at the Keg and I have a ton of great memories from those days. Rock on Keg Staff.

Photo Vault - do the wave

GIF animations generator gifup.com

The art installation the Watertable under the Gardiner Expressway.

Graffiti on the walls

Artists and gangs tag the walls wherever they have even the slightest access. Cans of spray paint litter the alley, leftover from a day of painting. The artists get mad when taggers wreck their work.

Someone adds a graphic symbol to the graffiti mural.

Most of the graffiti is stylized words and letters, a vomit of colours and easily forgettable. Along railway tracks and in long alleyways the words tell a story that is hard to decipher.

Sometimes graffiti is simple and shares a message.

And sometimes it is cute.

Posters in the street

Posters fill many of the building surfaces along the downtown core of Toronto, some in places where they should be - such as the special light poles, and some on anything that doesn't move. The posters go up in such numbers that they soon are inches thick. Weathered posters become torn in patchwork quilts and take on a life of their own.

Most of the posters are advertisements, some even advertisements for poster companies.

Kill Nuisance - Clast SPVM

A cartoon character gets ready to spray poison to kill some nuisance, seen on a construction barrier on Yonge Street. He could be a giant because he is eating someone and their head is sticking out of his teeth.