27 Sept 2017

Hockey Heritage Mural - Summit Series

Portion of a large hockey-themed mural, showing Canadian players celebrating during the 1972 Summit Series

Location: Rail underpass on Davenport near Caledonia Park Rd.
Date photo taken: 10 September 2015

It was 45 years ago this week that Paul Henderson scored the winning goal in game eight to clinch the first Canada-USSR Summit Series. That moment, with Henderson celebrating and being embraced by teammate Yvan Cournoyer, was captured by Canadian Press photographer Frank Lennon. That image has been recreated on a railway underpass at Davenport and Calendonia Park as part of a hockey heritage mural. At over thirty metres wide it depicts personalities and moments from Canada's golden years of hockey, from 1951 to 1993. Created by the Davenport Arts Community, they endeavour to go beyond the creation of static murals, incorporating augmented reality and interactive animation into their designs, a process they call murography, allowing the viewer to interact through their smartphone. I wish I had known this when I visited the site. If you've interacted with the mural, please leave a comment below and share your experience.

20 Sept 2017

Shoreline Beacon

Public art installation in a nook, consisting of a wall projection, a tripod and a staggered ground cover resembling a shoreline

Location: Lower Church Street
Date photo taken: 8 February 2016

This new art installation is tucked into a nook on Lower Church Street, just north of the Esplanade. Once upon a time, the natural shoreline of Lake Ontario would have been in approximately this location, before the City extended itself about a kilometer through the use of landfill. This piece, by artist Paul Raff, helps passersby rediscover this part of Toronto's history. The limestone base evokes the natural shoreline, and the projection on the wall explains the rest:

"For 10,000 years this was the location of Lake Ontario’s shoreline. This brick wall stands where water and land met, with a vista horizon." 

13 Sept 2017

Little Free Library

A small box with a sloped roof like a house, mounted on a post. The box is fronted by a door with a big glass window and is filled with books.

Location: 123 Woodfield Road
Date photo taken: 12 April 2015

This is a Little Free Library sitting in the front yard of 123 Woodfield Road. Normally on this blog if I post something that is sitting in a person's yard, I don't publish the address. In this case however the whole point of these boxes is for the community to use them. The idea is simple, and it's spelled out on the little sign on the roof: Take a Book. Return a Book. From the first box built by a man in Wisconsin for his own yard in 2009, the idea has snowballed. As of 2016, there were over 50,000 Little Free Libraries in over 70 countries, including over 100 in Toronto. If you're interested in hosting your own free library, you can buy one pre-made or download plans to build your own from the Little Free Library website. If you just want to browse someone else's collection, they also have a map to help you find the one nearest you.

Note: I think this library may have grown since I took this picture. Can anyone confirm if it's now two-storeys tall?


6 Sept 2017

Zoo Woods

A small area of wild forest on the U of T Campus - trees in spring before too many leaves, and ground cover

Location: St. George south of Harbord
Date photo taken: 6 May 2016

Walking along St. George Street, thru the heart of the University of Toronto's downtown campus, you pass this small, wild looking patch of green. This is Zoo Woods, a project undertaken in 1994 by the Zoology Landscape Committee to recreate the Beech-Maple forest environment that once predominated in this part of southern Ontario. Many of the plants here were rescued from the Altona Forest, a remnant of the beech-maple forest within the GTA which was cleared in 1994 to build a subdivision. With increased interest in fostering native species and increasing biodiversity within urban areas, learning spaces like this one can play an important role. To see what the space looked like prior to the project, or to download a map of the woods, check out the Zoo Woods webpage.