A noun. A verb. A blog.
How have you been holding it together? For me, it’s being outdoors. Often. Back in June, I wrote about walking around the nabe in a love letter to my neighbours. But it’s not only out in my yard or on city streets. Toronto and the Golden Horseshoe, that wide band sweeping around Lake Ontario’s western tip, both offer many other ways […]
Flutter down to Woodbine Beach in Toronto’s east end to visit the 2019 Winter Stations and surround yourself with The Forest of Butterflies (PDF). You have till April 1 to see the half-dozen temporary installations in this annual design competition, this year with the theme of Migration. Did you know it takes four generations of Monarch butterflies to […]
Have you seen the Chihuly glass exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum? I have been meaning to go since it opened, and I’m glad to hear they’ve extended it till January 8, 2017. (Looking up ticket prices this week, I learned you can get a good price by combining it with the Wildlife Photographer of the […]
These colourful bugs have long been replaced by huge mural on the railway underpass on the south end of Monarch Park in Toronto’s east end. As much as I’m in love with the replacement (and do intend to write about it one day), I’m also glad I preserved these smiling faces for a day like today. It’s election night 2016 in the […]
Yes, they can look stiff and formal. But I like glads because they remind me of our mother. Not only because Gladiolus is August’s birthday flower, and August 31st – today – was her birthday. It’s because of a piece of art she made, a print of some coral-coloured gladioli. Both our parents were gifted artists. Both were art-school […]
Joe Fafard’s cows in the meadow of Toronto’s Financial District Last night’s double-digit minus temps and today’s snow make me feel like these gals look. Resigned.
Thankful to be passing by, and spotted this little art piece by the sidewalk in someone’s garden Think of this as an Almost-Wordless* Wednesday-on-Saturday. Love the use of milkweed seed here. Gratitude to the internet and search engines for satisfying my curiosity: The fluffy, parachute-like structure at the top of the milkweed seed, or achene, […]
Installed at Annie’s Annuals near San Francisco, a room-sized reliquary chapel by mosaic artist Tina Amidon Dwelling on things to be grateful for is good mental health practice at any time, but especially during anxious moments when things seem bleak. Right now, the world is having moments. While I’m not a person who finds comfort […]
Sculptors Wojtek Biczysko (barefoot) and Ania Biczysko in the Swansea garden that has showcased both their works. How would you put a price on artwork? Some artists may command high prices for anything they produce, though many can’t. The Canada Council for the Arts notes the median income for a visual artist in Canada is […]
I’m truly thankful for the ideas that come home from our visits to artists’ gardens. Simple leaf cut-outs and a can or two of window frosting will get you this one. Much more fitting than curtains for balancing privacy and light in a garden shed! July 2015 was our first visit to the Port Hope […]
In the midst of another snow storm, here are a few shots from my trip to the Allan Gardens Spring Show last Saturday – shot in the midst of another snow storm. The Spring Show isn’t the cornucopia of bloom that the Easter Show will be. Still. Any port in a storm. While, outside, Allan […]
White cedars (Thuja occidentalis) and yews (Taxus) get precision haircuts It takes you by surprise. As you walk up the gentle rise through a very pleasant, but somewhat conventional shade garden in front and stand beside the hundred-year-old cedar-shingled home in St-Romuald, Quebec you see this. It’s a wow reveal; so beautiful, and so unexpected. […]