Ice Breakers

On another very cold day on the first weekend in February 2018, I decided to take in two art exhibits happening in downtown Toronto (I don't know what makes me want to get outdoors during these cold snaps - maybe because it's easier to walk? Haven't figured it out yet).

The first was the Ice Breakers exhibit, happening along Queen's Quay. There were five different sculptures in all, set along a very easy-to-follow - and well-mapped out - route along the street.

The overall theme of the exhibit was kind of an environmental one, and, as you'll see, all the pieces are constructed from natural or recycled materials.

I decided to go from east to west, from York Street to Lower Spadina.


First up, in front of the We Brew Cafe, was this piece by two sculptors, titled Root Cabin. As the name implies, it's made entirely of found tree roots, and shaped into a kind of shelter.
At roughly centre of picture, you can see a small electric light that dimly illuminates the interior.
People were going in and out and posing for pictures the whole time.

The interior is spray-painted a kind of purple colour, some if which is visible on the outside, too.
It was interesting to see this group of roots at the rear of the piece, and note that some of them must have been pulled from the ground wholesale, earth and all.

The next piece, set up on the Lower Simcoe Wavedeck, was called Black Bamboo, and is another sculpture made from trees (bamboo, as you can see), and also spray-painted, this time in black.
I got the first shot against the harbour and the sky:

And the next one against the condos along the north side of Queen's Quay.
Apparently, you could go inside this sculpture as well, but I didn't try. It looks kind of fragile, and I suppose that's part of the point.

The most colourful of the pieces was Winter Fanfare, at HTO Park.
It consists of a series of fan-like shapes, made, interestingly, from two-by-fours, and painted (with an airbrush apparatus, I'd guess) these striking colours that move from gold to red.

The piece is designed to be looked at from all angles, its appearance changing as you move around it, so here it is from three more perspectives:

At HTO Park West was this piece, Through the Eyes of the Bear.
This was another one you were invited to enter, and you can see the child in this pic, looking out, as intended by the sculptor, "through the eyes of the bear."

Moving close to one of the "feet," you can see that the outer part is made from a soft fabric.

And, from inside the "head," I'm getting my own view, through one of the "eyes," of another photographer. I never did find out what his picture of me photographing him looked like!

The final piece was a musical one, placed, appropriately, at the east end of the Music Garden. It's called Ensemble, and consists of a wooden frame supporting a series of metal tubes that sound when the wind blows or when someone moves through it. You could think of it as giant wind chime.
There happened to be a child going through it at this moment, so I took a short video of how it sounds. There doesn't seem to be any particular "tuning" to the tubes, but I found their sounds charming anyway.

And, while I was near the harbour, I thought I'd get some pix of how starkly attractive it is when partially iced in.
Looking south, you can see the planes at Billy Bishop Airport in the distance.

More to the west, an ice-locked marina along Spadina Quay, and the slowly crumbling silos overlooking Ireland Park - don't know what they intend to do with those.

Finally, I guess any day is a good day for ducks, whether it's at Tommy Thompson Park (as in my last posting), or here in Toronto's inner harbour. The brutal cold seems to have no effect at all!

And that was it for the Ice Breakers exhibit.
I also wanted to see the Toronto Light Fest at the Distillery District, but had to wait until it got dark for that to have the best effect. So, it was up to a restaurant on lower Bathurst St. for dinner, then on to Trinity St., and the next posting...