Events + Tours

Chester Station bursts into everlasting bloom

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Floral mosaic by Canadian artist Katharine Harvey in Chester TTC Station

When a garden friend told me about this mosaic installation by Canadian artist Katharine Harvey, I rushed right over to Chester subway station for a new installment of our TTC Garden Tour.

Wow. These glorious panels of hand-glazed ceramic tile depict native plants that might have grown in and around the old Chester Village or Don Valley ravine. Trout lily and blue flag on the westbound side of the street-level lobby, and milkweed and verbena on the other.

The images of plants are stylized and yet in some cases remarkably accurate. What can I say? Let me just step aside and let the pictures do the talking.

An in-situ view of Katharine Harvey’s Milkweed Verbena mosaic on the eastbound side of the lobby.

Some detail shots of the Milkweed Verbena mosaic for your delection, below.

And here’s Trout Lily Blue Flag, which opened up the show at the top.

A field of wildflowers brightens up the tired station.

Only after getting home did I realize that the entrance to the station also displays mosaic panels. An excuse to go back! [UPDATE: The entry façade hasn’t been done yet – unsure if it’s due to timing (aka inclement winter weather) or budget. Watch this space.]

For this edition of the TTC Garden Tour (to see others in this series, click the tag below), I was safely double-masked. Unfortunately, a few people weren’t. But it would be worth the price of a transit ticket just to see these mosaics up close and in person. The lobby is airy, and the doors are usually wide open.

Helen

Helen Battersby is a gardener, a writer, a garden speaker, and a power-walker, not always in that order!

6 comments

  1. I adore this and it makes me want to Fling in Toronto again so we can see it! We have a gorgeous community mosaic not far away which depicts the typical wildlife and flowers from the countryside surrounding Chippenham on a tired social housing estate. I love that too,

  2. Beautiful! Thank you for sharing. This is just exceptional, especially for a TTC station. I look forward to visiting once the pandemic is over and I head to the east end of the city again.

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