Toronto Light Festival 2020 - Sydmonaut

Location: Distillery District
Date photo taken: 12 February 2020

Back for its fourth year, the Toronto Light Festival has once again brought light and colour to the darkest months of winter. The Distillery District is hosting installations from 13 different artists representing 5 countries. Some, such as the Cloud Swings, are interactive. Others like the Sydmonauts are just there to discover. Designed by Amigo & Amigo from Australia, there are 9 astronauts in total scattered around the site.

The Light Festival is free to attend and continues to March 1.

103 Church

Location: SE corner of Church at Richmond

Date photo taken: 4 April 2013

"The window arrangement is particularly pleasing and a graceful note is added by the use of wrought-iron balconies, entranceway and ornamental lamps." That's how the Toronto Daily Star of January 24, 1930 described the newly proposed building at the corner of Richmond and Church. It was to be the new home of the J. Frank Raw Co. Ltd., makers of surveying instruments and machines for creating blue prints. It was designed by Murray Brown and it won him an award from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. I am pleased that the new building was such a beauty because it replaced one of the oldest remaining store blocks from the early days of Toronto.

Supernova

Location: Shops at Don Mills

Date photo taken: 14 July 2019

This clock tower, situated in the Town Square at the Shops at Don Mills, pays homage to the distinctive style of housing and the explosive pace of suburban development that characterized Toronto in the 1950s and 60s. What I love most about this Douglas Coupland piece isn't the piece itself, but one reaction to it that I found online. To sum up, "Wrong, wrong, wrong." On her Don Mills blog, Jane points out that while the house forms incorporated in the sculpture are similar in style to the homes built in Don Mills, "they Ain't. Don. Mills. Houses." Don Mills is unique in that it was Canada's first planned community and part of what makes it special is that the house plans were designed by select architects to suit the area. Those in Coupland's sculpture were based on blueprints generated by the government and supplied through the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. I love both the attention to detail that Coupland showed in the creation of the work, and the knowledge and passion exhibited by Jane in pointing out the historical inaccuracy.

Family Group

Location: 1470 Don Mills Road

Date photo taken: 14 July 2019

Sitting outside a small office complex on Don Mills just south of York Mills is a sculpture featuring a three member family grouping. Despite their spindly appearance, described in one source I read as “emaciated”, I get a sense of joyfulness from this piece. It is the work of Prince Monyo, a Romanian exile, done while he was living in Canada in the 1970s. He claims that he never aspired to be an artist, but that a friend here taught him to work in bronze. He later opened one of the largest bronze foundries in Florida.