I wandered back down to Boxcar Social for an espresso fix and ended up sipping a Left Field Brewery Oatmeal Brown Ale.  No idea why, but it seems to fit the lazy, warm Sunday. So here I sit, with a stack of photos to rifle through, a cold ale and my pen & notebook.

While sifting through the mass of shots I took Friday, I acquired a greater appreciation of Toronto’s street artistry. Queen St’s Graffiti Alley gets a lot of attention (and rightfully so), but many are not aware that Toronto is hopping with smaller urban canvases. One of my favourite areas to crawl around is south of Bloor and Bathurst. Aley ways snake through the area, filled with jaw dropping artwork & occasional witty graffiti tirades.

Friday’s walk (Catpaw finds her (photographic) groove) took me through a couple favourite hotspots. On Lennox St, beside the Randolph Centre for Arts, is a long lane worth checking. Some of the art is nothing more than mediocre scrawls, a few are pure whimsy or riotous explosions of colour and a few display an applaudable cynicism.

I keep returning to the old Honest Ed’s site to see what progress is being made. For those not familiar with Toronto icons, Honest Ed’s was the big, gaudy block long discount department store that sat on the south west corner of Bloor and Bathurst for … well for ever, it seemed. The store closed down a few years back and now the land is being redeveloped.  When the big old warehouse style building was torn down, some stunning old wall adverts were revealed for the first time in decades. I posted this photo the  wall on Instagram months ago:

I remember standing on the corner thinking grab the shot now, it won’t be there much longer. It’s an amazing combination of old commercial art & modern graffiti. It’s gone now – demolished with the rest of the building. There was something about that particular wall that captured my attention. The mix of structured commercial adverts with colours still sharp after so much time + the graffiti that thumbs it’s nose at the lines below. Ah, I loved that view and now it’s rubble.

Strolling along the alleyways of Toronto is always entertaining, Take the Great Canadian Flame Wars in the next photo:

There seems to be a slight disagreement over the philosophy. It cracks me up. No idea why, it just does.

The interesting thing about street art is, it’s never static.

Time flakes off one layer and someone fills the gap. It’s never static.

These 2 seem to be having issues:

Maybe some counselling might help R & S get over whatever issues they’re experiencing. A bit of anger management therapy? Let’s look down the lane for a consultant, ok?

Umm .. no. Just .. no. Dear god … no.  Some graffiti is mundane, but once in a while I stop for a bit and wonder what was the thinking behind a particular patch. This guy defines “I have issues”.

There is so much to see on this one lane, that I find different things to focus on each trip.  Next post will look at some of the murals scattered along the walls and doors. (I’ve already written the article, so you won’t have to wait so long this time.)

Oh .. and that ale from Left Field Brewery here in Toronto? Couldn’t ask for a more divine way to while away an afternoon than sipping it while writing.