Chapter 20
618 Words
Creative Fire
For most of the year, strollers, bladers, and cyclists near the Ward's Island ferry docks may be intrigued by the oversize rusted metal assemblages hanging from the fence of the Island tennis courts. Upon closer inspection, these will prove to be fantastical welded sculptures depicting strange creatures, like the winged toad that is the mascot of Island residents. Should they be so lucky as to visit the Island on certain dates of the year (like the Friday of the Simcoe Day weekend), these visitors will have a rare chance to see them in their full glory, when artist Bruce Smith connects them up to a gas feed line and sets them alight. His ornate fire sculptures are sometimes installed in the lake off the beach after dark, where the blazing images are reflected in rippling water. They have had winter outings on the ice of the lagoon, and they can be adapted to shower water instead of flame.
Big Draw
Musicians do it, why not cartoonists? That was the thinking of Dave Howard when he founded the Toronto Comic Jam in 1996. Hoping to foster a comics community, Howard and an average of thirty others gather together at the Cameron House (408 Queen St. W.) on the last Tuesday of the month. The jam is simple: one cartoonist draws a panel and passes it on to the next cartoonist, who adds a panel; on and on it goes, until the story is finished and the group has drawn closer.
ART AND TRASH
In August 2000, the city teamed up with the Toronto Environmental Alliance and the Canadian Union of Public Employees to present the Garbage Collection, a trio of painted garbage trucks. Using themes of air, earth, and water, each truck would illustrate the importance of co-operation between unions and environmentalists. But when one mural portrayed two politicians swapping money and a trash train heading out of town, the truck was quickly whitewashed. Too controversial, considering the city was being roundly criticized for sending trash to an abandoned mine in northern Kirkland Lake.
Missing Murals
Users of the Dufferin-St. Clair branch of the Toronto Public Library (1625 Dufferin St.) may be unaware that they're walking around under buried treasures. At the beginning of their careers, the now celebrated painters George Reid (pictured above) and Doris McCarthy were commissioned (in 1926 and 1932, respectively) to create murals for the upper level of the library walls; Reid's depicted themes like "Community Life," while McCarthy's showed fairytale characters. In a misguided renovation in 1964, the images were painted over, and now lie under seven layers of household paint. The Regal Heights Residents' Association has been
working with the library to raise funds to reveal and restore the work, section by section. At the time of writing only a small test patch fortuitously showing a hand holding a book- had been uncovered. (Incidentally, McCarthy spent more than 40 years living and working in a scenic property at 1 Meadowcliffe Drive in Scarborough, which she named "Fool's Paradise. In 1999 she donated her land and home to the city, which in return has named a walking trail along the adjacent Bellamy Ravine for her.)
Galleries, Fresh & Unusual
Centre for Addiction and Mental Health often displays art done by patients. 1001 Queen St. W., 416-583-4339
Gallery 1313 is the hub of the thriving Parkdale arts scene. 1313 Queen St. W., 416-536-6778, g1313.org
Gladstone Hotel Art Bar is
where you go for guzzlin' and gazin'. 1214 Queen St., W., 416-531-4635
Katharine Mulherin
Contemporary Art Projects.
A trio of them, actually, that showcases some of the city's best young artists.
1040 Queen St. W.; 1080 Queen St. W.; 1086 Queen St. W., 416-537-8827
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