Grounds for Art Public Art Competition

Manhole Cover from France


Manhole Cover from Japan

Although "manhole covers" are not first and foremost in our minds when we think about public art, why not? They're necessary, so why not make them beautiful and meaningful too? Many cities have done great things in this regard, as the pics above show.

See more on the what different countries and cities have done with their manhole covers on ManHole.ca.

Now its Toronto's turn. As part of the Regent Park Revitalization, the City of Toronto is holding a competition to design new gratings for utility hole covers such as water valve covers, storm sewer covers and sanitary sewer covers. This is a fantastic idea, as manhole covers are always there, but mostly ignored. Its an easy way to inject some creativity into the city, literally from (below) the ground up.

Anyone can submit up to three designs, so get cracking! The deadline is Nov. 27/06. Read more about it here.

Postsecret Blog

Recently I've had a bit of an obsession with trying to see through the bullshit and facades which we are presented with everyday in this crazy world. In particular, I've been interested in having REAL conversations with people, about real, honest things. Like lonliness. Abuse. Addiction. Self-worth. I feel like there's a whole other parallel universe out there that we can access, not by going to another dimension, but just by having honest, heartfelt interactions with others.

Accordingly, I was happy to find out about this blog. This guy decided to leave postcards (pre-paid, I think) and pre-addressed all over the place, with requests that people write down their secrets and mail it back to him. Damn, I wish I had thought of this first. Some of them are by turns funny, horrifying, and slit-your-wrists-vertically tragic. See the Postsecret blog here, which is updated every Sunday with new secrets. Now, its even more interesting because people make their own postcards, and I think you can even send in your own secrets! Of course, if anyone feels the immediate need, you can leave an anonymous secret by commenting here!

Toronto's First Annual Nuit Blanche 2006 - Post # 3

This is the final post in a short series about the Nuit Blanche Festival in Toronto.

These three pics are on Philosopher's Walk (behind the ROM). This is the much publisized fog sculpture, the idea (or so I heard) being that as you walk through it, each person changes and creates the scuplture. Although walking through the fog with a bunch of strangers was really cool, I didn't find that the above idea really held. Its interesting how fog can be captured on film.




These next two pics were, I think, also on Philosopher's Walk. Each of these long pieces of paper ties to tree branches with tinsel were printed with wishes. Bad part: there were only a few originals, the rest of the papers were just repeats. The good part: visitors took it upon themselves to write in some of their own wishes in pen. Most memorable, something like "I wish that everyone could be happy in their own way". Amen to that! Testify!

And, finally, my friend the lovely Miss Kitty Galore (aka Kristyn Dunnion) did a reading of her most excellent literary work (at the Heliconian club which can be seen in the previous posts).

All in all, this was a great festival, and I hope they do it again next year, and every year following. Toronto has been trying extra hard in the last few years to promote itself as world city (Waterfront Revitalization, Four Seasons Centre, ROM, AGO and Royal Conservatory renos, downtown wi-fi) just to name a few. This can thus be seen as the latest attempt to achieve this end. Let's see if the results are good enough to see it thorough to next year! To see what other people were saying about Nuit Blanche, see bloggers here and here. On Flickr, the Toronto Star, and the Globe and Mail, and of course, Spacing.

Toronto's First Annual Nuit Blanche 2006 - Post # 2

Second in a series of posts about the Nuit Blanche festival.

These two pics were at the Heliconian Club in Yorkville. It was pretty frightening for my partner and I, who had never actually been to Hazelton Ave before. Yipes....each store more expensive looking, trendy and pretentious than the last. This was formerly a church (more on its history here), and is a beautiful space. We met a lovely and very chatty woman there, who is part of this exclusive club. She told us that the space has been used by a womens' musical ensemble since 19-0-something (hey it was 3:30 am, and I'd been nipping from my friend's flask, so don't expect me to remember exact details). I just loved the atmosphere: cushions strewn about, fireplace roaring, and they even served free hot chocolate and cookies! The actual event was a reading, one more pics of that in my third and final post.


These next two were in an alleyway off of Queen West, and featured a wall covered with various white shoes, with interesting notes written on the wall.

A beautiful ice sculpture on Queen West.

Toronto's First Annual Nuit Blanche 2006 - Post # 1

Toronto has finally decided to join the ranks of many other "world class" cities (Paris, Brussels, etc.) and has thus started to hold the Nuit Blanche Festival. Although they did reject my proposal (not that I' m bitter or anything), I went, I frolicked, I drank lots of coffee (and other intoxicants) and had a blast. It was so cool to navigate the city at night and see so many people out. I was reminded of my trip to Spain many years ago, when it was such a novelty to me to be out in a foreign city, at 3 am, and feel totally safe because there were families, couples, etc, just strolling around. If you haven't been to Spain, get off your ass and go!

Anyway, on to the Nuit Blanche pics:

The Drake was hopping, as it is anyway on a Saturday night. These projections onto the building added some visual interest.

Some trendy folks busting a move outside the Drake. Note to very trendy and dressed up ladies seen on Queen West and Yorkville: heels and light capes are not appropriate attire for running around the city in misty weather.

A car wash on Queen West that had four "garages", each one set up like this, but with a different video playing. Brilliant idea, although not many people were actually sticking around to watch them.

On Queen West, this was quite the extravaganza. The man below was performing a live play, and he was featured in a separate performance on the screen which was set to dramatic opera music, while the people on the sidelines waved flags and fire. Can you find the sign that says "Queen W is Dead"?

Another one of the Queen W. car wash videos.

Alleyjaunt 2006 - Post # 2

I didn't get to see what was in the garage (the door never opened, you had to lay down like these folk to see what was in there), but I thought this looked neat!



This garage was amazing. The inside of it was completely covered in this aluminum like material, which was much more airy and flexible than aluminum. What you see here is some metal posts that were knocking in rhythm against the material on this spinning record player.

Can't remember the name of this collective, but these ladies have spent the last year or so making the city of their dreams in textiles. Can't say enough good things about this one: beautiful, inventive, cute, the urbanists' dream work in textiles. Got the pics in the wrong order, but they're the one below, and the last one.

This one (I believe the people are called the Quicksand Collective) are pushing quicksand awareness.

Alleyjaunt 2006 - Post # 1

Checked out the Alleyjaunt (installations and artwork in the garages and alleyways around Trinity-Bellwoods Park) last weekend. Divided into two posts for your viewing pleasure.

This one was great. A little tent that had this video playing on a drop down screen set to great 30's jazz. Click to enlarge the pic, and you can see that there is a chair set up in front of the screen, and the figure sitting in it is the same one in the video. It was great, because you felt totally removed from the sunny park outside, and felt like you were transported to another place. It really reminded me of those old-school video booths they used to have in malls when I was a kid, that had cartoons playing.


This is a pic of the ceiling of one garage used in an installation. I just thought the colours of the various pipes and wood was great in and of itself. The guy that "donated" his garage to an artist to do his thing was this old fella named George. He was so entertaining that my friend Don thought that HE was the installation. Hilarious.

This is from the same garage. Hurray for paint chips that can brighten a day so easily!

This one was just too cute: little wire urban animals with tiny stylish clothes (seen on the next pic below). The gals were great, and we discussed the virtues of well dressed urban animals soe length....a much underdisscussed topic!