Toronto+Vancouver City of Labyrinths Project

Chinese Dance atop my Grange Park Labyrinth in Downtown Toronto . . .

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#morning #exercise at the #park #toronto

A post shared by Erinn Brush (@brushi) on Jul 17, 2012 at 7:41am PDT

Fire in the Labyrinth !

The Maze gets a fresh coat #anonymousmindfulness

A post shared by Eleni Alpous (@elenithecamera) on May 15, 2012 at 5:04pm PDT

Golden Rays of the Evening Sun sets beyond my Grange Park Labyrinth in Downtown Toronto . . .

Most of the North South lines of this Labyrinth I painted Blue, thus matching the South wall of the Frank Gehry designed Box atop the Art Gallery of Ontario.

East West lines I painted mostly white, to match the Ontario College of Art and Design Shoebox floating in the sky above the main OCAD Building.

Sunset reveals white of the East West much more than blue of the North South.

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Sunset

A post shared by Daniel Francavilla ✪ (@danielfrancavilla) on Feb 9, 2012 at 2:14pm PST

Sometimes people skateboard through my Labyrinths rather than walk . . .

” Wading pool maze/confused pigeon ”

The Labyrinth I painted in Grange Park in Downtown Toronto is recognizable enough that it can be seen from the CN Tower !

Many thanks to David Jones for this Birds Eye Photograph.

“Art Gallery of Ontario and Ontario College of Art and Design

The Frank Gehry enhanced Art Gallery of Ontario and the Will Alsop designed Sharp Centre for Design of the Ontario College of Art and Design surround Grange Park, Toronto, as viewed from the CN Tower.”

– David Jones

Growing up in Toronto, one invariably will travel the subway system. For years, just east of the Victoria Park station, I would spot this wading pool in the park officially known as Prairie Drive Park but most people think of it as the south end of Warden Woods.

I always thought of the many thousands of people who look through the window of the subway train, and see this empty circle of concrete.

In May 2007, I finally got around to painting a labyrinth there. The circuits are white and I used a thin paint brush. Those choices made it less easy to identify from the distance of a speeding train what it is than I would have liked. More Photos

Most days, I short-cut through this little park, Gwendolyn MacEwen Park, in The Annex neighbourhood in downtown Toronto.

People however, aren’t the only ones who enjoy the park…
More Photos

The Labyrinth Community Network is best known for their efforts in animating the green space in Trinity Square Park with The Toronto Public Labyrinth.

The LCN is less known for their first success, The High Park Labyrinth. It was initiated in 2001 by Sylvia Senensky.

Located in the secluded dip just north of Hawk Hill, The High Park Labyrinth has been enjoyed by those in the know for years.

Those who don’t know are usually patrons of the Grenadier Cafe and Tea House or people parking their cars in the lot just a stone’s throw away. More Photos

T.V. Rots Your Brain – Elevator passing floors 3 5 7

I was in an elevator this past winter in one of the office towers which inhabit the concrete canyons of Toronto’s financial district.

The panelling of the windows on each of the four sides (once the doors were closed) of the elevator were slightly off, causing a visual ripple and infinity effect.

I took three photographs and used autostitch freeware to create the mirror image you see.

Of note, is that each of the three prominent reflections of the floor number, they are different, showing ‘3’, ‘5’, ‘7’, hence the title of the photograph.

“My other nightmare is that of the mirror.

“The two are not distinct, as it only takes two facing mirrors to construct a labyrinth.

“I remember seeing, in the house of Dora de Alvear in the Belgrano district, a circular room whose walls and doors were mirrored, so that whoever entered the room found himself at the center of a truly infinite labyrinth.”

— Jorge Luis Borges, “Nightmares,” Seven Nights, 1984, pg. 29.

I spent a couple of days earlier this week in The City, San Francisco.

Initially it was to honour the sixth anniversary of the Boxing Day Tsunami.

I built a giant outline of a candle in luminaria, then as I did exactly five months ago on the one month anniversary of the Tsunami, I waited for the Sun to set on the west coast of North America…

In due course, the same Sun would rise in East Asia.

This Giant Candle is my way of sending hope from here to there; of saying without words, that you all have not been forgotten.

I decided to stay overnight at Ocean Beach after building a fire with driftwood, sharing warmth with strangers, falling asleep to echoing rhythms of The Pacific as waves crashed womblike upon the shore.

The morning brought breakfast beside The Cliff House above the ruins of the Sutro Baths, then ultimately, exploring the Land’s End trail near Mile Rock Beach.

Without expectation, following a winding trail, a discovery.

But who and when and why and how…

The what however, is known: Lands End Labyrinth.

Second in a trilogy of Bay Area labyrinths by Eduardo Aguilera.

It’s about a year old, though I had no knowledge of that at the time of discovery.

As it happened, I was still carrying a printout of a seven circuit Chartes labyrinth design.

I struck up a conversation with Roger, one of the early morning labyrinth walkers who you see wearing a Farley’s hoodie.

Roger had no clue as to the origins, but turns out, he himself had just built a labyrinth in his backyard.

Roger also owns Farley’s Coffee in Potrero Hill.

…Amazing who you can meet when you walk newly discovered labyrinths…

A number of co-incidences have happened in and around discovery of Lands End Labyrinth.

This labyrinth is off the beaten path and built by one person, Eduardo Aguilera, in hopes that people would discover them on their own. …sounds familiar.

He had built another labyrinth in the Marin Headlands, at an exact spot that I would discover later the same day. When I stumbled upon the spot, immediately I was inspired to gather stones and begin a labyrinth outline in the earth… yet I was out of gas. Exhausted. Spent. Yet still inspired to return and do it properly.

San Francisco and Toronto, both share well known public labyrinths attached to churches in central locations initiated by formal networks of people: Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, and Trinity Church in Toronto

Find myself realizing that I may be Toronto’s Eduardo Aguilera.

But now left with a question I cannot answer from here, where does the Land End in Toronto?