A group of stickers seen on a pole on Queen Street East recently
has an image from Catchoo combined with a perplexed Sailor dude from Ty Pro in the top place – what a cute balloon! At the bottom are three heads that you might recognize from previous posts. In pink is T-bonez from urban ninja squadron and the chosen few; on the right is a luchadore mask from bruho.
Here catchoo collaborates with c_priority (a k a Christopher Piccinich ) Even within the blacks of his suit there are little catchoo symbols and characters. I was hoping that there were secret messages written on the pieces of paper on the desk but there are just squiggly lines.
Last, feelings boi joins the fun. Is it a sword? or an umbrella? Whatever it is, there are smiles all round.
Take a few abandoned downtown Hamilton buildings and add large size artworks by a diverse group of artists and you have the makings of the Wheat Paste Anti Gallery. No artist’s statements, no words on the wall. This is the project has been brought to life by jumblefacefoto, aka Jeremy Lynch (including the producing, printing, and pasting of all the images in the installation).
In this blog post I want to show you the artists whose work now on display “in” Hamilton’s first Anti Gallery (in no particular order). First, Invasive Animal has taken over the front of the Oakwood Place building at 1067 Barton Street East where a sign says “Hop Canadian”. Once upon a time it said, “Save our jobs, shop Canadian”. Also once upon a time, this was a restaurant/bar. Now the animals have taken over.
Some of the animals:
Next door to the Oakwood was a Shoe King store. The “king” is gone and plywood covers its windows and doors; now it is a gallery wall for crkshnk (pronounced crookshank), an artist from New York City. All the images across the storefront are his work.
Another artist on display here is 33wallflower33. Her (and I am assuming that!) women and children evoke a previous age and often have a message to deliver.
My body, my choice.
Next, Brazilian artist antype (aka Luciano Costa) and Stephen Conner (from London England) share space on a building at John and Main.
below: A sample of antype’s black and white distorted portrait-like images.
Circles…..
… floppy circles, planetary circles, and planetary hats.
Stephen Conner’s images are also portrait-like but they are darker.
Installed in May 2023, gone by September 2023….. Urban Ninja Squadron’s T-bonez character livened up a stretch of blank wall at James and Wilson.
Last, but definitely not least, a series of images, or firegrams, by Danielle Goshay pasted onto the facade of the old Colonial Hotel building.
As mentioned above, all works were produced, printed, and pasted by jumblefacefoto
As part of the town’s Bicenntenial (200 years!) celebration, a large mural was created for the side of a building in downtown Prescott Ontario.
The Prescott People’s Place Commissioned by the Prescott Bicentennial Committee and dedicated December 18th, 2010 The Prescott People’s Place is composed of over 3000 pictures from Prescott people. This mural was created by Chuck Street and made in Prescott at MD Signs. Made possible by federal Canadian Heritage funding and the generous Prescott People. Victoria Hall and St. John’s Market The cornerstone for the Old Town Hall was laid on August 13th 1874 and the Market Building built in 1876. Both were demolished in 1960. The clock tower was added to the Town Hall in 1927. The orginal clock works were restored in 1980 and housed in the Rotary Clock Tower which still marks time today on the same corner. The building pictured on the left of the Town Hall is still standing and is home to the Forwarders Museum and Visitor Centre.
Athens Ontario that is. This Ontario town has decorated its walls with murals for many years now. Some of the older ones have been painted over and some have been refurbished. Most tell stories about the history and people of the community.
below: Main Street in Athens, June 2023
below: A tribute to Joshua Bates and his founding of the community of Farmersville. Bates was a surveyor and an architect. He donated land and built schools, churches, and stores. The town was renamed Athens in 1888.
below: On the wall of the fire station is a mural titled ‘The Great Fire/Athens 1894’ – “Dawn, May 19, fire broke out on Victoria Street but quickly spread to Main Street. The new fire engine could not be used because its short hose brought it too close to the flames.”
“In an act of great heroism, Mr. J. Rosenbarker braved the flames to climb down into an unused well close behind the burning buildings to hand up water to a bucket brigade. Mr. Rosenbarker stayed at his post until the fire was finally conquered.”
below: The day that I was in Athens there were two large trucks parked alongside this mural so I couldn’t get any proper photos of it. It is a series of medallions showing local landmarks such as the House of Industry, Dr. Giles House, Quaker Meeting House, the mill, and the First Nations Market.
below: ‘The Gathering’ 2020 by Dave Sheridan. This replaces an earlier 1987 mural by Pierre Hardy which in turn replaced a small painting on canvas by Crawford Slack in 1927. The portrait in the oval frame, top right, is Crawford C. Slack. Crawford Chelson Slack was born in nearby Wiltsetown in 1855. He was a painter (and a poet and a musician).
“Needn’t talk ter me ‘bout livin’ in the city with its show, Druther live ‘mong these surroundin’s where the folks are rather slow… Where the golden summer sunset gilds the village church’s dome — There among the slantin’ shadows, I would druther have my home.” by Crawford Slack
below: A lazy afternoon by the lake, “Charleston Lake Picnic” by Noreen Mallory. Granite outcroppings, pine trees, and water, all very Ontario cottage country scenery.
below: Mallory’s family had a cottage nearby and summers spent there helped inspire this mural. Another inspiration was “Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe”, a painting by French Impressionist Édouard Manet (except there are no nudes in Mallory’s version).
below: Manet’s picnic painting of 1893
below: At the corner of Victoria and Main streets.
below: A pair of work horses busy on the farm, another mural by Dave Sheridan.
below: Paint cans – the mural was not quite finished the day that I was there. I’m sorry that I missed seeing it painted.
below: Brockville and Westport Railway. No signature. Former Athens railway station. The first train ran on B&W railroad in 1888 pulled by engines built at the Kingston Locomotive Works. The line was 45 miles long and had 16 stops.
It replaces an earlier 1987 mural by Lorrie Maruscak
below: Inside the Main Street Cafe is yet another mural, ‘Step into the Past’. It was painted by Sheila Ballantyne and Sergio Lopes.
below: A copy of an older mural that no longer exists is displayed on a fence. “This mural originally graced the hardware store on this site and was created in 1990 by Cathy McGuire. The border features alternating patterns of quilt squares and historic farm scenes. The center of the mural depicts farmers and a steam engine threshing the grain that separated the grain from the stem.”
below: Two large weathered photographs on display.
below: “Dedicated to the Canadian troops who trained in the Athens area and who served in the First World Ward (circa 1915).
below: Main Street, Athens, 1920.
below: Main Street is also represented by a mural that features some of the businesses that were established here.
below: The flag that the boy is holding is the version of the Canadian Red Ensign that was in use between 1922 and 1957.
below: Main Street 1910 (found on Wikipedia, original source Special Collections, Toronto Public Library. Photographer: H.R. Knowlton). The large brick building with the three awnings in front is home to three businesses, Thompson, Lamb, and Arnold like those in the mural.
While walking around the Byward Market in Ottawa, I saw a lot of traffic control boxes at intersections that were wrapped with old black and white photos. This is the result of The Capital History Project, a collaborative effort between Carleton University, the Workers History Museum, and the city of Ottawa. These boxes first appeared 2017 and they are/were all over the city. I am not sure how many there still are …. but here are a few of them….
below: Petigorsky’s shoe repair. Mr. Oscar Petigorsky in front of the store that he and his wife Nina ran, 1930s. The store was at 289 Dalhousie Street.
below: The sign on the side of the horse drawn wagon says “”Tea and Coffee Warehouse, W. Cunningham, Grocer, Wine Merchant”
below: “Ottawa band Modern Rock Quartet at Cafe Le Hibou”, photo by Dave Sproul circa 1970. MRQ was formed in 1967 and over the next few years they played with many top rock groups of the era. According to Wikipedia, their first live performance was at the Prime Minister’s official residence – that would be Pierre Trudeau.
below: Sam’s? Buy & Sell
For a complete story of these boxes, see the Capital History website. There you will find an interactive map showing the location of all the boxes.
In the Byward Market area of Ottawa, you can find a collection of large mural as you look across a parking lot on Dalhousie Street. They stretch along the wall of a funeral home on St. Patrick Street.
below: The darker end of the murals is signed by three. They are Juan Carlos Noria, The Laporte Brothers (Phil and Dom Laporte) and the Higher Ups.
below: Apples and currants in the corner
below: The other part of the wall is for the birds so to speak. The blackbird (raven?) on the left was painted by DRPN (Drippin’ Soul).
below: This is a closer look at the head of the bird on the righthand side. It is the work of Mique Michelle, an artist who work often features feathery birds (or other animals)
below: A large mural by Dom Laporte featuring a Locomotive 2037 pulling a long freight train. The history of Smiths Falls was always closely tied to the railways. In February 1859 the first train arrived in town – on the B & O (Brockville & Ottawa) railway, pulled by a wood burning locomotive. In the 1880’s B & O was amalgamated into the CPR (Canadian Pacific Railway)network. a few years later a second rail line, the Canadian Northern, came to town.
below: Smiths Falls railway station with its distinctive turret – built in 1912 for the Canadian Northern line on their Toronto to Ottawa route. It is now a National Historic site.
below: High above the street on scaffolding, working to “renovate” the lawyer’s office – a twist on the historic mural. Ryan, Knott & Dixon would probably be quite happy with the facelift that Craig Campbell and Chris Addy have given their brick building.
below: An older mural painted on wood and then attached to the wall. A winter scene on a downtown street.
In Peterborough Ontario the Hunter Street bridge crosses the Otonabee River. The west end of the bridge is in downtown while the east ends at James Stevenson Park. It’s in the park that you’ll find the paintings.
Back in 2015 and 2016 two of the arches under the Hunter Street bridge were painted. Nogojiwanong is an Ojibwa word for “place at the end of the rapids” and it was their name for the area that is now Peterborough.
Facing the Nogojiwanong mural, and not visible in the above photo, are three animals – deer, beaver, and lion. Now the town is referred to as Electric City. Why? Because on May 24, 1884 Peterborough was the first town in Canada to have electric street lighting on downtown streets. Power was provided by the London Street hydroelectric water plant, also built in 1884.
The murals on this arch were painted by Kirsten McCrea, with the help of Vicky Jackson (at least that’s what it looks like in the bottom right of this photo).
Bloodroot is a plant native to the Peterborough area. It gets its name from the fact that it bleeds red when the stems are cut. According to the text in the mural (bottom right, below), bloodroot propagates through a process called myrmecochory which is seed dispersal by ants. The seeds have external “appendages” that are rich in food that ants like. Once this food is consumed, the seed is discarded and can germinate.
… and rooster … and tractor.. paintings in Napanee Ontario.
Once used for storage, these silos were painted by Shane Goudreau as part of the redevelopment of the site – from County Depot to insurance company. An excellent way to preserve some of the history of the area.
Eyes on the Streets 