Photos

Summer has just come to Toronto this week, but has it ever arrived! Intense temperatures and skimpy clothes rule the streets and parks. (We don't get much of a spring season here; it's been said that we have two seasons: winter and patio.)

On Queen Street West artists of various calibre were out in force, displaying and selling their creations, especially paintings, drawings, and jewellery. This guy, whose black and white outfit matched his black and white paintings, was one of them. (The photo's title is taken from the 1976 film, despite the fact that the movie has to do with French colonialism in Africa and my image, pretty obviously, does not.)

Queen West is one of my favourite areas in Toronto, perhaps next only to Chinatown, and ranking with Kensington Market (all of which are conveniently near one another). This is where art meets chutzpah, where creativity sometimes mates with commerce, though it sometimes offers itself for free. You can get a tattoo, buy used CDs, watch a street performer, eat delicious food (including vegetarian, sushi, and diner fare), browse weird little-known books and magazines, and try on clothes by up-and-coming designers, amongst other things. Sometimes there'll be live music.

As you head further west things become less gentrified -- which may be good or bad depending on your outlook -- and the percentage of art galleries climbs until it reaches an truly incredible saturation point (not far from one of our major mental health institutions) where it seems that every third door leads to a gallery. Or two galleries (sharing space). Sometimes even the door is optional -- one gallery consists of a storefront window, nothing more. You can't go in, you just stand in the street and look.

If you want to know more about the area -- and especially if you're going to visit Toronto -- you should really check out this article in Wikipedia, which is better than I'd anticipated it would be, and which gives tons of cool details and links.

Just to play around with the photo's name -- and the pigments of choice of the street artist -- there's a B&W version of this image in the workshop. B&W in B&W.