Bellevue Square Park Labyrinth painting in progress in Kensington Market

bellevue-square-park-labyrinth-in-progress-august-3-2009

Following creating the labyrinth in the wading pool in Christie Pits Park over the weekend, I found myself thinking about creating a more permanent labyrinth in the Kensington Market neighbourhood.

I have been painting labyrinths for most of the Pedestrian Sundays for the past 6 years, but they are on the streets. With wear and tear from vehicle traffic, they don’t have the permanence that a car-free location can have.

Wading pool still being top of mind, I biked to the Market, eyed the wading pool there and spent time dowsing around where the entrance might be. I did my usual step measuring by shoe length and oddly realized both the Bellevue Square and Christie Pits Park wading pools are about the same size.

The above photo is from earlier in the day, on Simcoe Day Holiday Monday. I was quite beat from the day before and spent triple the time simply chalking out the design.

Shortly before I began to paint, Dylan, from spacing popped by to check out the progress in person. He was rather amazed to learn the length in and then out of the labyrinth verges on walking a kilometer and a half.

Knowing my limit for the day, I decided to intentionally paint only the loose ends where the circuits end at each of the turn-arounds and the walls which I again expanded and turned into undefined empty spaces for future artwork to be added to the Labyrinth by others.

Painting only these loose ends allows me a much easier time in picking up wherever I left off when I must stretch the creating of labyrinths into multi-day projects.

Kensington Market is filled with artists and I doubt it will take long for the hoped for art to fill the emptinesses.

With the ending of the TOStrike, wading pools and splash pads in Toronto Parks are expected to re-open as parks and recreation staff return to work.

This is going to limit exactly when I will be able to finish painting this labyrinth, hopefully sometime before the end of the weekend.

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