TalkWalk

Stunning day for enjoying Winter Stations at Woodbine Beach Toronto. Appropriate and timely theme of migration. Concludes 1st April. Make sure to fit in a beach walk with temporary art installations. @ Woodbine Beach

Sorry to learn that Joe Fafard, artist, and creator of the iconic cows at Toronto’s TD Plaza recently died. “Pasture” provides a welcome and humourous oasis in the centre of the bustling business district. Fafard’s creation is a great favourite with locals and visitors alike and a real asset for the city.

The covered bridge walkway between Hudson’s Bay Department Store/Saks of Fifth Avenue and the Eaton Centre is as much a sculptural highlight as it is an engineering feat. Like a camera aperture, or the opening to any James Bond film, the bridge beautifully transforms from the rounded archway at Hudson’s Bay to the square opening on the other side of the road into the Eaton Centre. Large windows offer great views of Old City Hall and its clock tower with gargoyles lunging out. The floor gently moves like a swing-bridge as pedestrians make their way over it.

The elephant in the room. This is Tembo, which is the Swahili word for elephant. The adult appears to be confidently making her way, plowing (?), through snowy Commerce Court followed by two youngsters. Sculpted by Derek Hudson, it took a year to create and is welded together from 31 pieces of metal. One of a number of works donated by successful businessman and philanthropist Louis (“Bud”) Odette whose firm Eastern Construction had worked on such projects as Roy Thomson Hall and the CBC building in downtown Toronto. Bud had bought an elephant sculpture while snowbirding (escaping Toronto’s winter) in Florida and ferried it around several foundries in Ontario until he found one that said they could make a life size model. There’s a Tembo in Windsor, and a baby Tembo at the London School of Economics.

How ice cream used to be made. First step: freeze the cow. From Joe Fafard’s 1985 “Pasture” - a sculptural work of 7 bronze cows on a lawn in the middle of the financial district. The work reflects back to when this part of (what is now known of as) Toronto would have been pasture and cows an important asset - for the supply of dairy needs, and as the equivalent of machinery dragging felled logs, clearing land and tracks for roadways.

Last Alarm (2000) by Yolanda Vandergaast, commemorates Toronto firefighters who have died in the line of duty. The sculpture includes a bronze portrayal of a fire fighter holding a rescued infant. Today’s icicle adds a further layer of poignancy if we liken it to a tear, and/or perhaps it could also be likened to images that show how quickly water applied to fires in freezing conditions becomes ice. @ HTO Park

Family Group, (1972) by Almuth Lutkenhaud-Lackey, was donated by the Historical Society of Mecklinberg Upper Canada in memory of Johann Albrecht Ulrich Moll. Moll was a colourful character, an artist and diplomat, who escaped a bungled spying mission in Poland by disguising himself to enter a Turkish harem, ended up being kidnaped by Hungarian bandits, and charmed his way into North America with 200 fellow Germans. His name by this stage was William Berzcy, and the park this sculpture is modestly displayed bears his name. Berzcy entered into a deal in 1794 to build Yonge Street from Lake Ontario to Lake Simcoe (a project they didn’t complete). Years later, in 1834, his son was on council and proposed a name change for the town of York to “Toronto”. The snow is the perfect backdrop for the Family Group shadow.

Float Forms by Douglas Coupland 2007. These fantastic forms are oversized depictions of fishing bobbers, denoting the lakefront theme at City Place. For those who don’t fish, bobbers (or floats) are usually attached to a fishing line and can drift in the prevailing current with a suspended baited hook. It also indicates when a fish has taken the bait. The CN Tower behind looks like the biggest bobber of them all.

Trompe l’oeil, a trick of the eye - an optical illusion whereby the subject appears realistic. A 1980 mural at the back of the historic Gooderhan Building, also known as the Flatiron Building, in Toronto by Derek Besant. Painted on 51 separate panels, and currently seen from all angles of Berzcy Park.

Dashing through the snow. Mail mushers. This scene depicts the Canadian mail service delivering parcels and letters in wintry conditions with dogs and sleigh. Bas-relief stone-carved scenes by Louis Temperole are a highlight of the old Toronto Postal Delivery Building (now Scotiabank Arena). “No finer stone carver in the world” were the words to describe artist Temperole in 1939. Check them out when you walk past them on the way to watch the Raptors or the Maple Leafs; or events including Ellen Degeneres, Muse, and Ariane Grande.

The second hand statue of a king. “I was not really after Edward VII. I was after a great horse”; said Harry Jackman who financed the transportation of the statue from Delhi to Toronto in 1968.

“I think it would be delightful if the statue were installed as a kind of playground. It would be disastrous to regard it as a work of art, but as a campy symbol of the British Empire it would be perfect. Particularly if it were painted in Sergeant Pepper colours!”; said Toronto art consultant Michael Greenwood.

Gallery owner Jack Po***ck said “the only significance the statue had was that it was large and made of bronze”, adding “that’s the tragedy of it, because bronze lasts forever.”

The statue of King Edward VII by British sculptor Thomas Brock was unveiled in Delhi in 1922. When India was “in the process of getting rid of reminders of the days of British rule”, transportation to Toronto was financed before a location was chosen for it. The statue now stands in Queen’s Park – fittingly opened by Edward when he was Prince of Wales, and dedicated to his mother Queen Victoria.

Credit Torontoist for background info.

It’s been a good weekend to sit back and do less. And a great way to do less is to do Moore. Henry Moore, that is. The AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto) has one of the worlds best collections of work by renowned sculptor Henry Moore, and an entire gallery devoted to his work.