Abundance at the Saint John City Market

November 23, 2013, 9:19 am

≫ Next: Creativity Afoot!: Toronto’s Varied Manhole Covers

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St. John, N.B. City Market

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Americans celebrate Thanksgiving later this week, about a month and a half after Canadians mark their own similar holiday.  A trip last week to the picturesque City Market in the heart of downtown Saint John, New Brunswick — filled as it is with vibrant colors, numerous tastes and smells, all manner of local and regional food offerings and friendly vendors — brought to mind both country’s annual Fall celebrations.   These images taken during that trip provide a small sampling of this wonderful local marketplace.

Tagged: Baked Goods, Canada, City Market, Food, Fruits, Local Market, New Brunswick, Photography, Saint John, Thanksgiving, Travel, Urban, Vegetables

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Creativity Afoot!: Toronto’s Varied Manhole Covers

July 18, 2014, 2:05 am

≫ Next: Neighborly Toronto!

≪ Previous: Abundance at the Saint John City Market

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A while back I posted a collection of Quebec City manhole covers as an offbeat photo subject.   From a recent trip to the wonderful urban melting pot that is Toronto, here’s another assortment of these often overlooked cast iron street fixtures.  Having encountered at least 25 variations, I’m intrigued by the subtle expressiveness reflected in these compact circular spaces.

Tagged: Canada, Cityscape, Industrial, Manhole Covers, Ontario, Photography, Toronto, Urban, Vintage

Neighborly Toronto!

August 1, 2014, 2:00 am

≫ Next: Ossington Avenue Graffiti

≪ Previous: Creativity Afoot!: Toronto’s Varied Manhole Covers

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The mosaic or melting pot, as you prefer, that is Toronto is notably defined by its many distinct neighborhoods.  By the time I realized I was working on a theme with these signage shots I had already overlooked about a dozen or so too many feet-miles earlier to readily retrace my steps.

 

Tagged: Canada, Cityscape, Creativity, Design, Ontario, Photography, Street Signs, Toronto, Urban

Ossington Avenue Graffiti

August 17, 2014, 7:39 am

≫ Next: Splendid Farm Offerings at the St. Lawrence Market

≪ Previous: Neighborly Toronto!

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Crisscrossing the streets of Toronto, it struck me that I had to look harder there than in Montreal to find graffiti or street art.  But what’s to be found in Toronto is every bit as varied and creatively expressed, as shown by these two examples, both in the Ossington Avenue area.  I’ll post more later.

 

Tagged: Art, Canada, Graffiti, Inspiration, Ontario, Photography, Street Art, Toronto, Urban

Splendid Farm Offerings at the St. Lawrence Market

September 6, 2014, 4:39 am

≫ Next: Love These Vintage Neon and Bulb Signs!

≪ Previous: Ossington Avenue Graffiti

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Since the early 1800s, the St. Lawrence Market in Toronto has been a traditional marketplace for fresh fruits, vegetables, cheeses and all manner of other agricultural products.  It’s a colorful and happily bustling scene that has the distinction of being named by National Geographic in 2012 as the world’s best  market.  Even if a matter of opinion, that’s high praise!  Snapping these shots between bites of a warm croissant graced with some local honey provided a relaxing hour’s idyll.

 

 

Similar posts on O’Canada:

⇒ Abundance at the Saint John City Market

⇒ Kensington Market, Toronto: Fresh, Funky and Fun

⇒ Early 1900s Town Markets

Tagged: Canada, Farm, Food, Ontario, Photography, Shops, St. Lawrence Market, Toronto, Urban

Love These Vintage Neon and Bulb Signs!

September 13, 2014, 6:51 am

≫ Next: Stewart Jones’s Vivid Cityscapes

≪ Previous: Splendid Farm Offerings at the St. Lawrence Market

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Mixed in among modern urban streetscapes, the look and feel of the rare classic neon and bulb-lit signs are distinctive. I spied these in Toronto and one in New Brunswick (the fabulous sign for Mel’s Tea Room!), which happily stand the test of time.

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Tagged: Canada, Neon, New Brunswick, Old Signs, Photography, Signs, Toronto, Urban, Vintage

Stewart Jones’s Vivid Cityscapes

June 25, 2015, 2:01 am

≫ Next: Andrea Kastner and Rejected Things

≪ Previous: Love These Vintage Neon and Bulb Signs!

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Stewart Jones, Wellington Composition (2013)

Stewart Jones is an immensely talented Canadian artist with a passion for painting vivid cityscapes — many set in Ontario — that are simply wonderful.   He refers to his paintings as “love letters to the forgotten corners and alleyways” of our cities. Jones’s images often depict buildings at irregular angles or vantage points and feature lush brushstrokes that together energize his work and provide a fresh perspective on the often-overlooked, uncelebrated urban structures and byways that constantly surround us.  More of Jones’s beautiful art can be seen at his painting website here and on his Facebook page.

Stewart Jones, CM Composition #1 (2013)

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Stewart Jones, Urban Alley (2014)

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Stewart Jones, Kingston Walkway (Year Unknown)

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Stewart Jones, Royal Hotel Picton (2014)

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Stewart Jones, Hamilton (2014)

Image Credits: Stewart Jones

Tagged: Art, Canada, Cityscape, Contemporary, Inspiration, Ontario, Painting, Urban

Andrea Kastner and Rejected Things

August 21, 2016, 2:00 am

≫ Next: Vintage / Mod Design: The City Bus

≪ Previous: Stewart Jones’s Vivid Cityscapes

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Andrea Kastner, Progress (2014)

Andrea Kastner is an up-and-coming young painter whose art deals with what she calls the “sacred nature of rejected things” and the stories that underlie society’s no longer useful objects, structures and places.  The scenes she paints are ones that are readily familiar in urban landscapes across Canada and the U.S., with the constancy of the old being torn down or pushed aside as detritus to make way for the new.

Kastner is originally from Montreal, studied art in New Brunswick and Alberta and  until recently was based in Hamilton, Ontario.  She is now located in the creative town of Iowa City, Iowa.  More of Kastner’s  terrific work can be seen at her artist website here.

Andrea Kastner, Noah’s Ark (2013)

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Andrea Kastner, The One That Got Away (2013)

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A. Kastner, The Inventory of Dreams (2014)

Tagged: Canada, Inspiration, Landscape, Modern Society, Painting, Urban, Waste

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Vintage / Mod Design: The City Bus

January 16, 2017, 12:59 am

≫ Next: Artist to Appreciate: Mary Garoutte

≪ Previous: Andrea Kastner and Rejected Things

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City Bus on Vancouver Street (about mid-1950s)

Distinctive industrial design reveals itself in many ways and, when done well, can be a genuine pleasure to take in.   While the specialness of such design is often difficult to see in our contemporary surroundings, its otherwise subtle impact jumps out when looking back at vintage images. A case in point: the humble municipal bus, operated in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary and other cities across Canada.  Over this period theses buses began to display a very mod sensibility as they evolved from the severe boxiness of earlier 1930s and 1940s versions to later, during the 1950s through the 1970s, being adorned with more rounded contours, sleek curves and very stylized lines and chrome elements.

Tagged: Buses, Canada, Design, Industrial Design, Retro, Urban, Vintage

Artist to Appreciate: Mary Garoutte

June 4, 2017, 3:40 am

≫ Next: Fred Herzog’s Vintage Vancouver

≪ Previous: Vintage / Mod Design: The City Bus

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Mary Garoutte, “Sundown, Lincoln Street” (2015)

What strikes me most about Mary Garoutte’s urban landscape paintings is the way she highlights the play of light at the beginning and the end of days.  These quiet periods that brim with potential, while also evoking a mixed sense of meditative loneliness and reflection, seem to be as much the subject matter of her work as are the historic houses and store fronts of Halifax, where she is based.  Garoutte cites the Group of Seven artists and Wayne Thiebaud as among key influences on her art, which are evident in her choice of colors and the strong textural brush strokes on her canvases.  Her wonderful art also brings to mind for me the feelings of solitude conveyed by Edward Hopper in his own paintings of dwelling places during the quiet hours.

More of Garoutte’s work can be seen on her artist website here and is also available through Argyle Fine Art.

Mary Garoutte, “Yellow Door (Falkland Street)” (2013) 

Mary Garoutte, “100 Montague Street” (2015)

  

Mary Garoutte, “Dwellings (Light in the Window)” (2015)

Mary Garoutte, “Glass House” (2016)

Mary Garoutte, “Single Dweller” (2016)

Mary Garoutte, “Late Night Visit” (2016)

Mary Garoutte, “Red Bicycle, Young Street” (2014)

Mary Garoutte, “Sunset on Agricola Street” (2013) 

Similar posts on O’Canada:

—  Artist to Appreciate: Katharine Burns

—  Stewart Jones’s Vivid Cityscapes

—  Artist to Appreciate: Christopher Pratt

Fred Herzog’s Vintage Vancouver

December 17, 2017, 6:07 pm

≫ Next: “I’ll Meet You There”

≪ Previous: Artist to Appreciate: Mary Garoutte

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Fred Herzog, Bogner’s Grocery (1960)

I’ve seen the street photography of Fred Herzog previously but a brief essay by Geoff Dyer in today’s New York Times Magazine prompted me to look anew at Herzog’s work.  Herzog came to Canada in the early 1950s from Germany and from the late 1950s through the 1960s pioneered color street photography in his adopted city of Vancouver.  His candid shots provide a splendid if unvarnished documentary of the city and its people during that period.  The vintage images also subtly illustrate many things that have changed in Vancouver and other urban areas throughout Canada (and America) in the past several decades.

More of Herzog’s work can be seen at Vancouver’s Equinox Gallery and on its website.

Fred Herzog, 2nd Hand Store Boy (1959)

 

Fred Herzog, Alexander Street (1967)

 

Fred Herzog, Granville Street from Granville Bridge (1966)

 

Fred Herzog, Granville/Robson (1959)

 

Fred Herzog, White Lunch Granville (1959)

 

Photo Credits:  Fred Herzog and Equinox Gallery

Similar Posts on O’Canada:

⊕  Vintage / Mod Design: The City Bus

⊕  Love These Vintage Neon and Bulb Signs

⊕  Regent Gas Station and Sleek Modern Design

“I’ll Meet You There”

January 28, 2018, 7:51 am

≫ Next: “Three Things . . .”

≪ Previous: Fred Herzog’s Vintage Vancouver

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Can’t help but smile about this quirky handmade sign stumbled upon recently in the Kensington Market district of Toronto.

The words are from a poem by Rumi that is generally understood to be about putting aside judgments that divide people and instead to focus on appreciating the wonders of being and the things that connect us all.

“Three Things . . .”

February 10, 2018, 3:38 am

≫ Next: Shades of Toronto Graffiti (Part 2 – P.S)

≪ Previous: “I’ll Meet You There”

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Graffiti Sunburst, Kensington Market, Toronto

“Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon and the truth.”                          

                                      ~ Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha)

Shades of Toronto Graffiti (Part 2 – P.S)

April 6, 2018, 9:23 pm

≫ Next: Shades of Toronto Graffiti (Part 3- Designs)

≪ Previous: “Three Things . . .”

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I realized after I shot these four images that the faces had similar characteristics and they were all tagged “P.S” and were likely done by the same street artist.   Their creator  favors funky, angular faces and there’s definitely a certain style going on with these.

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Similar Posts:

~ Shades of Toronto Graffiti (Part 1 – Overview)

Shades of Toronto Graffiti (Part 3- Designs)

April 7, 2018, 4:50 am

≫ Next: Signs of Vibrant Charlottetown

≪ Previous: Shades of Toronto Graffiti (Part 2 – P.S)

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On the walls of Toronto some of the street art exhibits strong elements of design, such as these examples. I especially like the piece just above, which is painted on a piece of plywood tacked onto the side of a building.

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Signs of Vibrant Charlottetown

June 27, 2018, 1:45 am

≫ Next: Laurie Campbell Perfectly Captures Winter in the City

≪ Previous: Shades of Toronto Graffiti (Part 3- Designs)

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Charlottetown is a delightful city on Prince Edward Island, whose residents are blessed to live in such a vibrant place and beautiful province.  Small cities and towns throughout Canada often struggle to sustain a thriving economy and a high quality of life.  To its credit, Charlottetown appears to have figured out a formula that works well.

On a recent visit to its city center, I was amazed at the evident diversity of its wonderful shops, eateries and arts and music scene.  These shop signs are a small reflection of that.  Although PEI may be the smallest province in terms of geography and population, it holds its own quite nicely.

Similar posts on O’Canada:

» Annapolis Royal Through Its Signs

» On the Street Toronto: Fun & Unusual Signs

» Colorful Montreal Shop Signs

Laurie Campbell Perfectly Captures Winter in the City

January 27, 2019, 6:59 pm

≪ Previous: Signs of Vibrant Charlottetown

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Making one’s way through almost any busy city during snowy winter days requires a certain hunkered-down and focused steely resolve.  Montreal realist painter Laurie Campbell beautifully captures this feeling in her cityscapes of Montreal and elsewhere.  The chill in the air, the wetness of walkways covered with snow and slush, and the occasional icy slipperiness beneath the feet are all perfectly evoked on her canvases.

Given the present season, I’ve chosen to highlighted her winter scenes here.  However, Campbell’s artist site and the galleries that carry her work (including Montreal’s Galerie Eric Klinkhoff and Toronto’s Roberts Gallery) are worth visiting to appreciate her wide range of subject matter and the artistry and skill that she brings to her work.  On her website you’ll find several themed series of work, including ones featuring rainy day people, umbrellas, New York City, park hockey, among others.

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(Image Credits: Laurie Campbell)