Miniature roadside sign
A small roadside sign gives visitors fair warning: there’s art happening somewhere up ahead. A number of these led to a garden art show just down the street from East Dodgeville last summer.
Tag: art
Autobots, roll out!
It’s hard to imagine something more impressive than the sight of a Transformer, Bumblebee, standing at the side of the road in Port Hope:
Fortunately, you need only turn your head to see something far more impressive:
Primitive Designs in Port Hope always has something unexpected on display for passers-by on County Road 28. Last year, it was a Toronto Moose. This year, a two-storey-tall Optimus Prime and his merely human-sized companion, both made of car parts, grace the store entrance. An employee hinted that more may be on the way for next year. A fellow gawker was standing there all agog, barely able to string together a coherent sentence while standing in Optimus Prime’s shadow.
I can’t really say anything else other than to get thee on a day trip to Port Hope post-haste to check them out. The amount of work that went into them is incredible, as seen in this detail from Optimus Prime’s leg:
Doll on a dock
Is that a rod in your hand or are you just happy to see me?
People put the darnedest things on their docks. I hope he’s just holding the broken end of a fishing rod and not, uh, well, um, whatever it is that boys do when they pack up their satchels to spend a solitary afternoon by the river…
Stumpnose dolphins
I wrote a while ago about a chair carved out of a tree stump (and its subsequent demise), but it has nothing on this bit of stump art in Peterborough, a pair of dolphins leaping out of the yard. According to Google Street View, the dolphins were hidden inside this tree (in the shadows, at the front of the pickup truck) just three years ago, in August 2009.
Roadside dragon
This large metal sculpture graces a front lawn between East Dodgeville and Peterborough.
Stump chair cut down
Not even a month after I first noticed it, the stump chair near the Humber bridge is no more: someone broke it off at the top of the legs. You’ve gotta love people who see something unique and interesting and decide that they must destroy it.
Stump chair
Someone carved this tree stump into a fabulous chair near the Humber pedestrian bridge. The style should be familiar to anyone who’s seen a lumberjack show but is all the more impressive because it was carved in situ and is still attached to the stump. It’s also only about 18 inches high:
Awesome.
Make love grow
On Commercial Road near Industrial Street in Leaside, a message in crushed energy drink and pop cans graces three utility poles. The sentiment works whether you read it as three separate instructions or just one.
(Previously spotted by Rudy.)
Leaside swinger
Riding under the Leaside Bridge on Thursday evening, I noticed something hanging off the side. It looked like a wayward piece of scaffolding at first glance, but I quickly realized that it was an art installation. I went back Friday for a closer look and better pictures.
From up top, it becomes obvious that something is attached to the guardrail.
And now it’s a little more clear: it’s a tin man made primarily of air ducting. From this angle, it looks like he’s jumping to his death, but he’s actually sitting on a swing. His body is tilted forward because his left arm is broken and isn’t holding him upright on the swing seat any longer.
It looks like the Tin Man found his heart.
I like. I give it an A for whimsy and concept, plus bonus points for the heart.
This was my first time riding along this route in the Don Valley this year, so I’m not sure how long this installation has been there. I vaguely recall seeing a couple of people doing something at the railing during my ride home across the bridge one evening this week, but they could have just been gawking rather than installing.
An afternoon read
Although I haven’t been doing much walking there this winter, one of the pleasures of exploring Mount Pleasant Cemetery in any season is admiring some of the unique monuments and memorials scattered throughout the grounds. Many of the most touching bronze monuments are reflections of childhood fun, like this one of two children sharing a book.
If you’re wondering, the book is blank.