Exotic Car Wallpaper

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.

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'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.

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The art installation the Watertable under the Gardiner Expressway.

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.

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.

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.

Driving along Dundas Street West in the Village of Islington your eye catches the large murals on the side of several buildings on both sides of the busy road. The large paintings take over the building facade and show different scenes of life a from a time long time ago.
Some of the paintings show colours found in old black and white photographs and some of the paintings show bright, vibrant colours that really grab your attention. The outdoor gallery has been gathering quite the publicity and you can enjoy them as you travel on Dundas Street West from Kipling to Islington. Take a chance and stop to look at the detail in the paintings and the story that they tell.

The paintings also have plaques that tell a bit about the story behind the painting. You can also find more information on line if you want even more details - like story about the WWII bomber that buzzed a rugby game and ended up dropping leaflets onto a farm field.

You can see more of the amazing murals after the jump.

X marks the spot and X marks the turkey. Sometimes strange things happen in Toronto, sometimes you figure out why, other times you scratch your head and go on with life. Large white posters featuring X's and slashes are appearing on poles and boxes along Bay Street and other streets.
Toronto might finally be getting it's rating; parental guidance may be required. Two other X's and everyone can walk around naked having sex in the streets.

I always imagined that this is what a headache should look like. Or maybe it is what you would like to do to your head while suffering through a bad migraine.

The alleys off of Queen Street West are full of vibrant graffiti, some artful and some just mean tags. It seems like a pretty tough place with so many gates and fences and the ever present spray painted surfaces. I think most of the spray paint used in Toronto is along the alleys adjacent to Queen Street West. They say that "Graffiti Alley" runs south of Queen Street from Spadina to Portland. You can also visit the torontograffiti.com site to view some more graffiti and even hire a graffiti artist.
The city also has a lot of windows so you can find some interesting reflections of the streetscape, especially the popular CN Tower, staring right at you. Although sometimes you need to catch the tower at night when it is lit up in a changing kaleidoscope of colours.

The historic District of Distillery, sort of the like the District of Columbia, sits in the east side of downtown Toronto and keeps getting better with age (some call it the Distillery District). The condos bring more people into the area filling the many cafes and shops in the bricky neighbourhood. Here are some people (pictured above) with long poles cleaning windows. They are doing a lot of construction work on the east side of the District near Cherry Street for the Clear Spirit Condominium.

The large sculpture which I call the egg beaters near the centre of the District is up and you can see the installation being assembled beside the Pump House on my earlier post here. The sculpture is called "Still Dancing" by artist Dennis Oppenheim. You can also see more of the sculptures, some of them pretty wild and crazy, on this post. And who could forget the lovable plastic penguin with his little red hat that could be found outside on the streets, I haven't seen him for awhile, I hope he is not lost.

This great little area will play host to some of the Nuite Blanche works on October 2, 2010. Next time you are close stop by the Brick Street Bakery and enjoy some refreshments and the relaxing atmosphere or consider the Mill Street Brewpub or the Pure Spirits Oyster House & Grill (seen below).

Banksy's graffiti has taken quite the abuse since he first painted his works on the walls of Toronto. Many have been totally destroyed or defaced. It is both sad and ironic that his street art/graffiti gets painted over. But I do love Banksy.

On Wild West Queen Street West I find more art. It's like CityTV; everywhere. A beautiful girl looks down onto Queen Street pedestrians passing by (pictured above) from Omy Gallery. There website says "Pabst is the best beer for shows & you better have good art or nobody will show up".

At Trinity Bellwoods Park I see a "Where's Omar" poster stuck in the entrance gate. I also find some posters stuck on a pole, the posters have multiplied and are thick on the pole and have started to peel off.

At John and King Streets a new building is going up and the contractors have built an enclosure around the sidewalk to keep pedestrians safe. Once the plywood goes up so do the posters that people paste to the wood and sometimes the builders put up signs saying post no bills. Around this directive someone has painted pictures of several Bills including Bill Murray, Gates and Clinton. Here is a closeup of Bill Cosby.

There has been a new style of graffiti appearing around the downtown core of Toronto. Seven pieces were reported to be the work of Banksy, who is an famous yet anonymous artist from England, in town to promote his film Exit Through the Gift Shop. His artwork commands prices up to $500,000 plus and he likes to use images of rats such as this one at Spadina and Sullivan.



Banksy's work which is really different from the traditional colourful graffiti and tags that fill many surfaces in Toronto. Some of the art shows men in suits holding signs that say things like "0% interest in people". I hoped to be able to find the works and take some pictures but people said that they were asked to not reveal the locations of the pieces.

The great blog Torontoist was eagerly following the story and reported when a piece was destroyed or painted over and I was watching my chances of seeing the work in person rapidly diminish. Then Torontoist finally decided to release the locations and grabbing our GPS we headed out on a satellite guided expedition to see the remaining paintings. Thanks Torontoist!

This one in an alley on Dundas Street West at Manning Avenue was my favourite and has been tagged over by several jealous people. The sign which read "will work for idiots" was changed to "we will not be erased" still visible through the red and white tag. A monk has now been placed at the feet of the original art.





This piece is on a building on the south side of Lake Shore Boulevard West between York and Bay. A vulture has been added on top of the figure since the original painting was done.




The last remaining one we saw was this smaller painting on Church Street just north of The Esplanade. Torontoist tells a great story where the owner was about to paint over the graffiti when he was told how much they could be worth. He soon covered it over in plexiglass for protection - and it is still there to be viewed and appreciated.




See the state of the Banksy art in the alley in early 2011 on my blog post here.