Bell Box – Shunsuke Asuma

Location: Bleecker Street, just south of Howard
Date photo taken: 20 October 2013
Image #8 in the Bellbox Series

This distinctive Bell Box is the work of manga-inspired artist Shunsuke Asuma. It was part of the same 2011 project as Image #1 in the series. During that project 14 boxes were painted in the area bordered by Davenport Rd., Wellesley St, University Ave. and Sherbourne. The partners in the project were The Seeds of Hope Foundation, Bell Canada, the City of Toronto, the Bay Cloverhill Community Association, the Greater Yorkville Residents Association, the Church Wellesley Neighbourhood Association and paint was donated by Benjamin Moore Paint.

Uber5000 Mural - Victoria Park

Location: northeast corner of Kingston Road and Victoria Park Avenue
Date photo taken: 9 September 2013
Image 9 in the Mural Series

This is one small detail of a fabulous wrap around building-sized mural unveiled last summer at the corner of Victoria Park and Kingston Road. It was done by Toronto based artist Uber5000, aka Allan Ryan, and it was commissioned as part of the City's efforts to combat graffiti. Every bit of the mural is fun and whimsical but I love this part in particular for its clever incorporation of building infrastructure. In case it's difficult to make out in the picture, the artist has transformed some clunky hardware on the side of the building in to a large gold medallion.

Lawn Sign - No Jets T.O.

Location: a lawn in Bloor West Village
Date photo taken: 30 October 2013

Torontonians it seems love to wear their hearts on their sleeves. Walk through any neighbourhood in the city and you will see at least a handful of lawn signs protesting or lending support for some proposal currently under consideration. Some of these are for issues anyone even minimally acquainted with local or provincial politics will recognize, while others deal with extremely localized issues pertinent to only a few square blocks. I find this phenomenon fascinating so I've started to collect them.

Porter Airline's push to introduce jets at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, better known as simply the Island Airport, has been going on for what feels like ever. No Jets T.O. is a citizen-based group working to maintain our waterfront as a mixed-used neighbourhood and recreational gem. They're not opposed to having an airport on the island, simply its expansion into something at odds with other aspects of the waterfront. They work to educate the public on the issue and to keep the debate balanced by countering the misinformation being pumped out by Porter and the Toronto Port Authority.

Tom Lamb, Bush Pilot

Location: ground floor, 777 Bay St.
Date photo taken: 14 Jan 2014

With the cold weather we've been having of late I'm spending a lot more time exploring the indoor spaces of our city and finding interesting things every where I look. While I'd noticed this figure before, I had never stopped to read the plaque. From a distance, I had assumed it was an Inuit figure. Turns out it's a sculpture of Tom Lamb, a legendary bush pilot whose company, Lambair, flew for 46 years without ever suffering a fatality. Their motto was "Do not ask us where we fly, tell us where you want to go." CBC's Telescope did a profile on the flying Lambs back in 1966, by which point Tom had been joined in the business by all six of his sons. The Western Canada Aviation Museum also has a page on Lamb on their website, with a great story about one of his trickier cargoes.

The artist is Leo Mol, a Ukrainian Canadian who is known as much for his work in stained glass as for his sculpture. Over 300 of his works, including one very much like this, can be found in the Leo Mol Sculpture Garden in Assiniboine Park in Winnipeg, which Mol called home.