Monday Mural

  I'm linking up at Monday Mural 

June 2025 - Toronto ON

I found a Bordalo II here in Toronto in Little Portugal on the weekend!! Titled Eastern Cottontail.

Click on Bordalo II in the tags/labels below this post to see more Bordalo in Portugal and the States.

The mastermind behind the piece is none other than Lisbon-born artist Artur Bordalo, who uses the name Bordalo II in tribute to his grandfather. 

The BIA Little Portugal with the official support of Portuguese Embassy, partnering with Café Pessoa – Cultural Strategies, based in Lisbon, invited the artist Bordalo II to take over the Dundas’ West corner. / Objeto de arte do artista Bordalo II no Little Portugal, na Dundas St W (sul) a oeste da Lisgar.

Bordalo's "Big Trash Animals" series represents animals — which are built almost exclusively with garbage — on a large scale, inviting us to take a hard look at our own consumerist habits.

The series now consists of nearly 200 pieces around the globe and usually depicts native, endangered, or even extinct species. 

The production of each piece involves collecting materials, cutting and adapting the collected material, as well as assembling, fixing, and painting the garbage. 

A few others found along Dundas. If you click on the label/tag "Dundas West Open AirMuseum" below this post you will find other murals along this street from previous years.

Called Scratching the Surface, is etched on the side of 1628 Dundas St. W. and comes from another  Portuguese artist Vhils (AKA Alexandre Farto).

Vhils, whose work is found around the world, is known for his bas-relief carving technique — carving, cutting, drilling and at times blasting with explosives  in a "creative destruction process."

There is a sign that says “In 1975, night cleaners who worked in the Queen’s Park building organized for better pay. These women sparked a movement known as Cleaner’s Action."

From his Instagram post he explains:

“Part of my ​ongoing Scratching the Surface project, this new mural celebrates and honours the Portuguese immigrant women who toiled as janitorial workers in the high-rise office towers in downtown Toronto in the 1970’s. Portuguese “cleaning ladies” have been a constant presence in the lives of countless Portuguese-Canadians as mothers, wives, breadwinners, community members, and activists, and are an example of strength, resilience, perseverance and courage for us all. "

Cleaner's Action, an advocacy group founded in 1975 to support Portuguese cleaners. Its origins are linked to a “contracting-out crisis” precipitated by the actions of the Ontario government at its Queen’s Park building-complex. That year, the Ministry of Government Services undermined an organizing drive among cleaners that led to a first union contract as Local 204 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) by cancelling its contract with the original cleaning company and signing a new contract with a different company. Forced to accept low wages to keep their jobs, the women also turned for support to community workers with St Christopher (settlement) House. Cleaners’ Action’s assisted night cleaners with their individual problems and worked with them to address workplace challenges.

Influenced by sixties-era progressivism, teacher Sidney Pratt left Indianapolis for Brazil, where she applied the teachings of Paolo Freire, was a literacy activist, and participated in organizations of the international Christian left. During her Toronto years (1972-1987), she worked with the Free Interpreter Service at St Christopher (settlement) House, where she also initiated Cleaners’ Action among other programs. As an Ontario government civil servant, she initiated English in the Workplace classes and literacy classes for immigrants. She lives in Brazil. Portuguese-born Marcie Ponte (Santa Maria) first became involved in immigrant women’s activism as a college student, initially with St. Stephen’s Community House. She was a union organizer for the International Lady Garment Workers Union and served on the Labour Council. Since 1999, she has been Executive Director of the Working Women Community Centre, a woman-focused settlement agency for newcomers.

 Painted on wood and digitally reproduced on vinyl, 8th Fire by Philip Cote, is a visual journey into the Indigenous history and ongoing Indigenous narrative of the greater Toronto area, serving as compelling graphic acknowledgement of the continued contributions of Indigenous creators to the culture of our city.

The mural title refers to a 1200 year-old prophecy that foretold the age of the 8th Fire when settlers and the Indigenous people would come together and create a new space for future generations.

From fatspatrol's Instagram

On her way to the airport leaving Toronto @hera_herakut called to tell me she was leaving the start of a mural on Dundas West she wanted me to finish. 🙌 Like a call and response!
So I trotted out, found this beautiful little bird person and added the piece on the left and the stars to create a story.. Something about sharing magic. Stories and wisdom. Art. All the good things in the world. ✨

Monday Mural

 

February 2024 - Toronto ON

The walkway next to the Toronto Reference Library has been transformed into a vibrant collection of Arthur-Conan-Doyle - and Sherlock-Holmes-related street art thanks to the Sherlock Holmes Walk Mural Project, created by StreetARToronto in partnership with the Toronto Public Library, the Friends of the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection, and the Toronto Transit Commission.

Note the street sign! Click here for more Sherlock Holmes at the Toronto Reference Library.

Information below taken from the ACD Friends of the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection, Toronto Public Library.

Brian Jiang 
The artwork connects the vast fictional worlds of Conan Doyle and bridges the divide between the contrasting range of literary themes within his work from the logical, comical, eerie and the unknown. This crossover is depicted in the fantastical scene of a Victorian train moving through the book gate portals. The last portal (on the far right) is an homage to nearby Bloor Station to link the legacy of Conan Doyle’s literature to the present day.

Bernice Lum
My immediate thoughts were to illustrate the sense of humour that Conan Doyle created for his characters by some of his very funny, sarcastic, mind boggling and witty quotes and sayings which definitely set the mood of his stories.
I had to include his deerstalker hat as I do own one and patiently wait for winter to arrive every year in anticipation of wearing it. The tartan pattern is a roughly drawn version of the tartan designed by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s great-great-step granddaughter.
The reference to appendix in the quote: ‘I am a brain, Watson. The rest of me is a mere appendix.’ (Conan Doyle’s "The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone") makes me laugh as it refers to not only a so-called “useless” organ according to some doctors and people in the medical field, but also reminds me of an appendix in the back of a book, which also reminds me of books in general and the connection to libraries.

Jasmin Pannu
Book cover style, capturing two of my favourite quotes:
In the 2011 movie, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, directed by Guy Ritchie, Holmes, played by Robert Downey Jr., says of one of his lamer disguises, “It’s so overt, it’s covert.”
“There’s nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact” Arthur Conan Doyle - Sherlock Holmes - "The Boscombe Valley Mystery".

ADRIAN HAYLES
The Japanese female lead adaption of the classic Sherlock Holmes, “Miss Sherlock”, struck my curiosity as a great modern rendition. Combining my graphic illustrative style to the Japanese origins of the reference creates a uniquely original piece of art work.

MEGAN OLDHUES
Based on one of Conan Doyle’s last stories ("The End of Devil Hawker"), my concept aims to capture the mischievous nature of notable bully, fraudster, and great shot, Sir John Hawker. In the local parlour, Hawker marks the edges of the ace of spades card to double his money in bets against Sir Charles Trevor. Ultimately his hubris is his own demise, as less prominent characters such as “ Lucy” the barmaid witness all. Eventually he is found out and outcasted which leads to his suicide using the pistol which brought him infamy.
The story’s irony in that “what often brings us success also brings us downfall” led me to conceptualize a piece emphasising the character’s mischievous nature pre-downfall. “There is sawdust on the floor, numerous wooden armchairs, round tables for the card players, a small bar presided over by Miss Lucy Stagg.” Conan Doyle’s descriptive writing brings readers back in time. Using harsh candle lighting, a smug expression, and muted neutral tones, a mischievous mood is established. This final design is a scan of an oil painting created with my own photo references.

Keitha Keeshig-Tobias Biizindam
A few quick words about my concept: 1870 London Skyline Silhouette Including St Paul, the River Thames and Sherlock Holmes’ hatted head. Below that is a still-life-like arrangement of Sherlock Holmes’ most common clues all done in black pen & ink sketchbook style, all of this is over top a brightly coloured background of paint splotches that add a pop of colour behind and highlighting the clues and the Holmes skyline.elements come from over 20 separate images sourced, tweaked and layered into the reference image from research into the particular plants and dinosaurs, etc. making for an original piece of art inspired by Arthur Conan Doyle.

HEIDI BERTON
I chose to focus on Arthur Conan Doyle’s short story/novella, "The Parasite", which was first published in Harper’s Weekly in late 1894. The story focuses on a professor who is a skeptic of all things of the occult, and whose mind is infiltrated by a woman gifted in mesmerism, and has him act out things he has no memory of, when she feels scorned by him. I choose to highlight aspects of the story as well as themes and even a quote that the narrator repeats throughout. From the idea of her control over him shown with a marionette, the game of cat and mouse they’re playing, a crucial letter, a broken heart, sulphuric acid and an important time on the clock, each aspect represents a hint at something in the larger story. The story, written as a series of journal entries, has him often repeating the phrase “oh, that devilish woman!” as he realizes all the things she’s made him do against his will.

Fatspatrol (Fathima)
Although there is such a massive array of literature to sift through by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, I did ultimately settle on The Hound of the Baskervilles. This was a book my brother and I had on our shelf as kids and the cover image of the beast has always stuck with me. I have an attraction to images of ‘darkness’ and a curiosity about why society turns away from them. I thought I’d explore the beast a little more, and find some meaning in what it represents.
In The Hound of the Baskervilles, there’s a strong dichotomy and contrast between two sets of values. Dark vs. Light. Beast vs. Man. Savage vs. Elite. Good vs. Evil. Mystical vs. Scientific. The Moor vs. the City. The Untamed vs. the Civilized. The former being represented by the hound, the moor, the convict, Stapleton, etc. and the latter by the aristocratic. And in a larger context of the time these can also be seen as a reference to racial and class dynamics of the Victorian Era. Eliticism vs. the ‘unwell common folk’. I thought about why darkness poses such a threat, symbolically; we all have the capacity for darkness and to deter from socially determined norms and rationality. We all have an untamed, more primeval self. We all have a beast in us. And in some way, most of us are working to maintain a curated, proper version of ourselves that fits into society’s norms/ requirements/ ideals. Throughout civilization. The threat of the inner beast, of our fear and yet our fascination with darkness and the supernatural.

And so although my first instinct was to draw the man and the beast at odds with each other, face to face, I actually decided to change the orientation so the beast is part of the man and in some sense you see how one can turn into or return from being it. There is some reference to the fog that appears in the book; the fog that blurs our vision momentarily. And as humans we negotiate those boundaries everyday and apply them to larger social divisions. Certainly reading about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, there seemed to be conflict for him in his scientific self vs. his interest in spiritualism (and therein the dichotomy between him, the author, and his creation Sherlock Holmes). Do we fear the things we fear because we know that we have the capacity to be them, even though they represent the opposite of what we claim to stand for?

Jeff Blackburn
My concept focuses on Conan Doyle’s The Lost World and takes into consideration many elements from that story. 
With this mural, I am exercising that tone through a Conan Doyle inspired child (complete with big fake mustache) lost in a world of their own, and playing with various toys that are subtle direct links to some of the characters/ dinosaurs/fauna/landscape that are found on The Lost World’s plateau. These include Professor Challenger, the “missing link” ape men, allosaurus, pterodactyl, stegosaurus, plesiosaurus, palm trees, bamboo, gingko trees, mares’ tail, and volcanic rock (with caves in the rock).
The child is a Frankenstein’s monster of 6 different kids collaged together (separate face/ hands/ arms/ hat/ toys/mustache). And, the elements come from over 20 separate images sourced, tweaked and layered into the reference image from research into the particular plants and dinosaurs, etc. making for an original piece of art inspired by Conan Doyle.

TROY PYNN
I took inspiration from one of Conan Doyles’ science fiction short stories "The Disintegration Machine" published in the Strand Magazine in 1929. The story talks of a foreign scientist "Nemor" who has created a machine that is able to de-materialize matter and reconfi gure it with the pull of a lever, literally making whatever is within this machine disappear in front of your eyes! Oh the implications!
Professor Challenger, a character throughout many of Doyle’s stories, is accompanied by a journalist named Malone to visit Nemor and investigate the scientist’s magnifi cent claims.
Inventor Nemor ends up stuck in this non-material realm at the end of the story, suspended in the unknown, on purpose, as the ultimate censorship tactic from morally good Professor Challenger. Challenger has saved the world by casting out the Inventor who was incapable of resisting the temptation to use the technology for evil.
Conan Doyle was, I think, very spiritual. He had several family members die from complications at war, and probably thought about technology and war, as well as the afterlife. He, myself and many others, are heavily intrigued with the unknown experience (if there is one) after we de-materialize. This piece is meant to capture the energy of the cosmic dance of matter and what realms these particles may inhabit next.
This image was created by video feedback technique which has been part of my work for the past 2-3 years. The circular nature of the light and energy exchanged in this process creates a dazzling array of fractals and colour, reminiscent of the energy exchange found in Nemor’s machine in the story "The Disintegration Machine".

ANNWIN ARTS
My design is inspired by still-life art based on Round the Red Lamp and its 15 stories. I envisioned an old wooden shelf stacked with books surrounding a red oil lamp in the quiet of an old study. Gold highlights are added to make some of the elements jump and draw the eye to certain details. A skull is included to embrace the preface which Conan Doyle suggests: "one cannot write of medical life and be merry over it".."it is quite essential that you should paint the darker side". I added the silhouette of a mouse peeking around a book for some whimsy. I can almost smell the old books and feel the light flickering from the lamp. I experience a personal sensory connection to the design which I hope translates to those who view it.

BRENT HARDISTY
I envision this to be Sherlock Holmes discovering an ancient obelisk with a mixture of symbols and pictographs and hieroglyphs. On the other side would be Watson. Both are examining this mysterious object with origins they cannot seem to trace - possibly a relic from the ancient past before the end of the ice age of a lost cult.

EGR (Erica Gosich Rose)
My concept for the Sherlock Holmes Walk is inspired by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’ s creative metaphor of the human brain’s process of thought as a “brain attic”. According to Conan Doyle, Holmes believed that we store our memories and experiences in rooms like that of a house. It was also referenced in BBC’ s TV version of Sherlock as his “mind palace”. I love this as a glowing, crown-like visual metaphor for Conan Doyle’s genius and was inspired to make Holmes’ mind palace a depiction of The Palace of Westminster in London, England.

Monday Mural

 I'm linking up at Monday Mural 

May 2023 - Toronto ON

Taken on a visit to Stackt last week. Click here for other Stackt murals.

By Alfalfa

We had lunch here.

Fatspatrol

Cannabis and Coffee

June 2019 Front St. Toronto

John asked for my mother's chicken a la orange and I decided to find a slow cooker version that turned out really well.

He had picked up a bag of frozen haddock at Costco so we had breaded oven baked fish and oven sweet potato fries with mushy peas.

I thought the Tony Awards show was great this year but it is giving me the urge to go to NYC!

Ain't Too Proud was up for best show and we were pleased as we had seen it last October before it premiered on Broadway.



Monday dawned wet and gloomy. Decided to stay put as it is game 4 for the Raptors tonight so they will be shutting down the streets around the arena. It will totally mess up the bus schedule. Last Friday game 3 in Oakland put the schedule behind by thirty minutes when I took it at 3 PM and it just kept increasing the delays as the afternoon wore on.


Movies

Cold Pursuit - liked it didn't love it.

The Conversation - borrowed from the library online, made in 1974 mystery thriller. This was intriguing.

Chicken wings and fries were on the menu but I used a different used a different wing sauce and the improvements were great.


Our Raptors lost by one point on Monday night but still have two games to take a win!! BUT we only needed one game!!!!!!!!!!!😍

Tuesday I planned a trek downtown to include John's hankering for a burger.

First stop was the OD store on Queen St. West. Why? To see this.

OD Toronto is a consignment store selling and displaying some of the city's rarest streetwear collectibles and sneakers from brands like Nike, Supreme, OVO, and Bape.

The skateboards are under the glass floor.

And we came for this!!

Walking along Queen West to lunch.

It's not often that we find graffiti art painted on trees, or in the case of the “Hug Me Tree,” (Hugging Tree), on a tree stump. This favourite piece of art is located on the north side of Queen Street West, a short distance west of Peter Street. It appeared for the first time in 1999, painted by Elicer Elliott, a graduate of Sheridan College. He has since become one of Toronto’s best known graffiti artists.
Click on his name in the tags below this post for more examples of his work.

After completing the “Hug Me Tree,”“ Elicer Elliott placed a tag on the tree – “H.U.G.”- the name of his graffiti crew. As an afterthought, he added the “Me” to the tag, and Queen Street’s famous “Hug Me Tree” was born. It's been hidden for the last couple of years due to construction hoarding, but the new MEC store is now open.

View while we had lunch, west corner.

We checked out Graffiti Alley, an ever-changing outdoor gallery. I've featured some of these on Monday Murals over the years.

Another Uber5000. It is almost impossible to get a whole picture as it is behind a locked link fence. Click here to see a full photo.

The late Gord Downie of the Tragically Hip group has been added.

Then we walked to Front and Bathurst to check out Stackt.

For years, this 2.5-acre lot at the corner of Front and Bathurst sat vacant as the city debated its fate. The parcel of land is destined to one day become a park, but for the next few years, it has been leased to Stackt, Toronto’s newest fully-accessible market built out of 120 shipping containers. Stackt is a mix of event spaces, retailers, restaurants, services, galleries, and it even has its own brewery. With the shipping containers occupying only a third of the land, the remaining outdoor space has been landscaped with AstroTurf, a beer garden and a gravel pavilion that will soon feature a giant fire pit to keep the space animated straight through the winter months.

Monday Mural will feature more murals. Pigeons by Fats Patrol.

Alfalfa

Click here for murals.

We'll be back to explore the shops.

Walking Front St. east bound.

Massive construction site.

Crazy basketball fever.

John got his weekly golf league game in and he had requested lamb chops for dinner. I tried this recipe.


I headed out to return a meat thermometer that John didn't like and to the market for the chops.

Along my walk.

Union Station Food Market

Berzcy Park, in the St. Lawrence Market neighbourhood, recently got a makeover that includes a new fountain by landscape architect Claude Cormier. The fountain features 27 cast iron dogs.

Thursday, and of course, it was raining. I had seen the new permanent Kusama Infinity Room at the AGO in April when it opened.
We lucked out and there was no one there when we took a chance to see if we could get in.

This painting always catches my eye.
Frederick Varley’s Immigrants

This piece absolutely mesmerized me.


Source - AGO
Toronto-based Kent Monkman is an internationally-renowned Cree artist whose fascinating works explore themes of colonization, sexuality, loss, resilience and the complexities of the Indigenous experience. Known for recasting popular figures in art history with Indigenous people, Monkman’s works often highlight how Indigenous people were traditionally misrepresented and objectified in art history.

We see that in The Academy, where Monkman reframes historical works of art including Nicolas-André Monsiaux’s Zeuxis choisissant des modèles, which depicts Zeuxis as an artist in front of a blank canvas and several nude women models. Zeuxis amalgamated the models best attributes – using them for his painting of Helen of Troy. (The painting is on view on Level 1 in the Richard Barry Fudger Memorial Gallery, Gallery 125.)

The painting also reinterprets the ancient sculpture Laocoön and His Sons — which depicts three men struggling as they’re being attacked by serpents. In Monkman’s version, five idealized European men are at the centre of the painting – cast as objects in the Indigenous artist’s creations.

On the far right, above the depiction of Anishinaabe artist Norval Morrisseau working on his painting Self Portrait Devoured by Demons, is Monkman again, but this time as himself – making The Academy a double portrait of him in male and female roles. Monkman stands behind the easel wearing a traditional Cree Coat, caught up in an interaction with French Neoclassical painter, Jacques-Louis David. (Morriseau’s work can be found in the J. S. McLean Centre for Indigenous & Canadian art in the AGO.)

On the left is a woman who appears to be Harriet Boulton Smith. Her husband William Henry Boulton is behind her, playfully kicking up her skirt. (Boulton Smith donated her art collection and historic Grange estate to, what’s now known, as the AGO.) Look closely and you’ll find you’re actually seeing Monkman’s glamorous gender fluid alter-ego Miss Chief Eagle Testickle – a recurring character in his work. She’s creating a drawing while waving sweet grass and wearing a gown similar to the one Harriet wears in her portrait now on view on Level 2 of the AGO.

Artist Mike MacDonald is often referred to as the grandfather of Indigenous media art. Of Mi’kmaq and European ancestry, the Nova Scotia-born video artist and photographer was one of the first Indigenous artists to use video in a fine art context. He began working with video in the 1970s and ‘80s and frequently used it to explore the natural world and his Indigenous heritage – much like what he created in his work Seven Sisters,currently on view.

Seven Sisters is a multi-screen video installation shown on seven different monitors of various sizes, similar to the Seven Sisters mountain range in northwestern British Columbia. MacDonald first encountered the Seven Sisters mountains in the 1980s when he was invited to northern British Columbia for the Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en land claim case, in which the Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en First Nations took the government to court in an effort to regain jurisdiction of their territory that was being destroyed by clear-cut logging.

Created in 1989 using aerial footage taken from several vantage points, Seven Sisters showcases the grandness of the landscape with lively mountain goats and beautiful flowers and plants. However, it’s also a document of the devastation that clear-cut logging had on the area, indicating that if action is not taken soon to protect this unique environment, perhaps this will be the only way to see it.

As it uses several cathode ray tube (CRT) TV monitors, Seven Sisters presents unique challenges for the AGO conservation team: this type of TV is increasingly hard to find and maintain. Some of the monitors on display here at the AGO are the result of our keen-eyed team salvaging functional but discarded TVs.

Maybe it’s the sound of the soft music or the sight of the vibrant colours that draws you into the space; either way, I Rise, the new exhibition by Canadian-Maroon artist Winsom, captivates your senses. Inside this new two-room exhibition filling the south end of the J.S. McLean Centre for Indigenous & Canadian Art, you’ll find incredible large-scale multimedia installations of photography, sculpture, painting and more that explore themes of freedom, resilience, renewal and African spirituality.

Winsom is an Afrocentric artist who was born in Maroon. She later moved to Canada and currently works as an artist, activist, mentor and healer.


Winsom: The next room in the exhibition, Jumping the Boa, is about death.

FRIDA!!

Winsom: Here you’ll see an altar with images of people who are all meaningful to me. Odetta, the jazz and blues singer, pushed me to continue working on my art. There’s also Emily Carr, my mother, Marie Catherine Laveau (a voodoo priestess from New Orleans), Harriet Tubman, Frida Kahlo, Mohawk poet Pauline Johnson and Canadian painter Doris McCarthy.

Lunch in members' lounge, a cheese plate and smoked salmon with cream cheese.

The big game is tonight! Traffic was so crazy with streets closed off for the game that was being played in Oakland!!!!! It took us 45 minutes to get out of the downtown core and then another 30 minutes to get home because there was a three car pileup on the Gardiner....

While I was out John was making dinner. Shepherd's Pie a la Gordon Ramsey.
Delicious and enough for tomorrow!

YES WE WON!!!!!!

Downtown on Friday for a pedicure.

Royal York hotel lobby renovations are completed and it is looking very art deco with a bar area in the middle of the lobby.

Raptors everywhere!

BOOKS

Finally finished the John Lennon biography, a long satisfying read.

Started Swimming Across the Hudson, annoying, immature narrator.

LINKING UP WITH

Beth hosts Weekend Cooking where you can post anything food related.

Saturday Snapshots is hosted by A Web of Stories.

Seasons

Say Cheese

Monday Walks

Monday Morning Blog Club