The Best Place to Learn Graffiti in Toronto?
There's a spot halfway between Castle Frank and Broadview Station on the Bloor-Danforth TTC line that takes my breath away. I'm guilty of being an east sider, so every time I pass over the Don River on the Bloor Street Viaduct, a little part of me freezes inside and prays for the train to stall. It's the same feeling I used to get on the Skyride floating up Grouse Mountain in Vancouver. I suppose what gets me is the way urban and natural vistas spread out before you and both the city and nature mix together like the organic ingredients of the best chocolate cake you've ever tasted.
It also happens to be the greatest and safest spot in Toronto to pick up a can and paint for all to see. Call it the largest, most trafficked canvas in the city.
Now I've done graf before. But nothing to write home about. I covered the restroom at MIT in Boston with "No One Is Illegal" Sharpie pen and skirted big brother during the '08 election by tagging an advertisement for President Obama's White House in a prominent spot on Sherbourne Street. No biggies.
The element of danger and the potential of unfiltered political message is what hooks me. Clearly, I'm no Turk 187, books or even Serius Gramz, but I've got my heart in it. I grew up in a small art gallery in suburban Burlington surrounded by the rigidity of Robert Bateman and Trisha Romance so the haphazard angles and sloppy stains of aerosol keep me entranced. After seeing that huge new Michael Jackson mural on Richmond Street @ Harlem Restaurant, posting about graffiti here on BlogTO.com seems like the right way to publicly dive head first into the medium.
Graf is fairly untraceable. Sure, using your debit card to buy paint and nozzles at the art store around the block from where you plan to paint might not be the most effective way to guarantee anonymity, yet finding the best place to dip your toe into the vandals pool requires a certain element of safety for the rookies (ahem...me). Especially if you feel like escaping a few hundred dollars worth of fines from the men and women in blue.
Use cash and pick up your paint before dropping coins or tokens at your favorite transit boarding point. Disembark at Broadview Station, head north to Pottery Road and west down into the valley until you get to the Don Valley Trail adjacent to the Don River. From here you'll be heading south for about three quarters of a kilometre before arriving at a dusty spot just beneath the Prince Edward AKA Bloor Street Viaduct.
After scampering up the hill to the unused CN Rail line by the east retaining wall, the first thing that'll clue you into finding Toronto's Ground Zero of Graffiti are the piles and piles of rusty ol' spray cans. Probably a major sign of progress that where once laid discarded household rubbish and beer cans now lay the spent tools of art, message, colour and communication. Remember that dozens and dozens of people have taken their lives from the bridge above so certainly there is a ghostly and surreal vibe to navigate.
Step gingerly over the unused railway track - hell, you just can't tell if the overgrown weeds and grass here might give way to some speeding diesel train the very first time you embark on an art mission here. Pick your spot wisely. Bring cheap gallon cans and rollers from Rotblotts if you plan on making a new surface. Some graf etiquette requires of artists not to damage previous works, but if you've ever admired these urban murals from above - vandalizing vandalism is the only way to gain your novice rep - and this is for sure the first place to paint if you want impact and eyeballs.
There is untapped potential on the unpainted surface of the bike trail for huge works visible to the thousands who travel above daily on the subway.
Don't blame me but you should realize that the City of Toronto employs a "five-pronged approach" of "leadership, prevention, eradication, enforcement, and community empowerment" when dealing with graffiti so keep on the lookout for bicycle cops amidst the dragonflies and joggers who frequent the area. Ultimately, for anyone who has traveled this area before, you'll recognize that this is a nudge-nudge wink-wink safe spot to create.
Besides, afterwards you can celebrate with a completely legal bonfire at the firepit up near Taylor-Massey Creek.
Photos by Peter Harris.
Comments (29)
Geez, I can't believe Blogto would publish this. The author is basically telling people what they should do to commit crimes. Street art in legal/set-aside areas is one thing but for you to brag about vandalism is not cool.
I hope this is the first in a series of articles on street art and graffiti in Toronto. Bragging about it *is* cool.
More mindless idiocy from over-entitled art school students. New York from 1977 called, it wants its squalor back. Thanks for trashing our city even more than it has been, assholes.
I suppose you've never once gone a single KM over the speed limit or jaywalked in your entire life Jeff.
Get over it. We all break rules and laws every single day. The only difference to my eyes is that this is creating something. Questions of taste will certainly come into play, but beauty is an entirely individual question of taste.
Give me a break.
I used to bomb when i was younger and found these places on my own "Albeit in Montreal".
Cool article.
The best way to learn though is to get a fat cap, some Krylon Chrome and hit the streets.
BEIGE BEIGE BEIGE BEIGE
GREY GREY GREY GREY
BEIGE BEIGE BEIGE BEIGE
GREY GREY GREY GREY
BEIGE BEIGE BEIGE BEIGE
GREY GREY GREY GREY
BEIGE BEIGE BEIGE BEIGE
GREY GREY GREY GREY
...
Just trying to make you feel more at home in your boring-a** world.
If you're equating criminal trespassing and vandalism with jaywalking, then you're an even bigger idiot than your words appear to make you out to be. Please tell me you're five or so, because if you're in your twenties, you have serious Peter Pan problems. People like you are pathetic, perpetual children, whose uselss little ejaculations onto others' property is the sum total of all you will ever accomplish. You are leeches, worthless scum who despoil the efforts and accomplishment of others, forcing your juvenile, insipid and worthless scrawling upon us all under the ridiculous umbrella of "art".
You bring ruin and decreptitude to this city, bringing it down to your excretious level.
You're shitstains, each and every one of you. Who do you think you are? Where does this sense of entitlement come from, moronic parenting, outsized egos, or both? Nothing is being created here, nothing. It's like arguing taking a piss in the snow is creating something.
Moron. Grow up, respect others' property, and figure out the difference between creating and desecrating. When you reach some level of maturity and respect for others and our city (and when your head emerges from your anus) get back to us. Until then, shove your spray cans and self-righteous explanations for criminal behaviour up your spoiled, childish ass.
I see from the picture that the empty spray paint cans were not deposed appropriately. The fines for littering are just as severe as disfiguring walls.
I truly wonder if you're able to construct a single retort without resorting to expletives and rambling self-important rhetoric.
I'm not trying to suggest that you're some kind of hypocrite, but how can you decry graffiti artists for "bringing ruin and decrepitude to the city" in the body of what is possibly the most offensive block of text this website has ever seen? Do you pick your nose with those flaming fingers of fury?
Let not a single drop of paint fall off the canvas fair citizens of Toronto or you will have to answer to Exlibris.
Behold his sheild of utter ignorance! Not even plain truth can cut through it's mighty alloy, forged in the depths of his own mind.
Fear the sting of his sword-of-swears. His sharpened rapier of rudeness has reduced sailors to weeping piles of despair.
Oh, before I forget.
Consider this your personal invitation to my piss-in-snow art show happening in a queen west gallery sometime this winter. Hopefully placing this act in a white-walled space of acceptance will meet with your rather pedantic, ostentatious life-guidelines.
Heh. I love the banter that this post has brought to blogTO. You should come east more often.
Also, nothing beats the supercalifragilisticexpialidocous throw up that Torontoist covered at this very site like, four years ago.
As a representative of OPSEU and CUPE, I disagree with the way non-unionized security guards trying to do the best with the knowledge and tools empowered to them must face oppression in the form of the militarization of information sharing by undocumented workers involved in the intelligence community. If the ROMA and LA RAZA visa issue has not been settled soon, more m*rder and d*ath will result as the result of Thomas the Tank Engines' yellow bus(t), if you are going to continue to distribute torture techniques amongst non-unionized GOOD COP BAD COPS between Hamilton PD and Toronto Police Service, expect violence for the sake of killing. Comfort Zone, consider this your first legal notice. Ending the war on Tibet requires more than cab calling and water sales. If one ROMA or LA RAZA goes dead or missing because CborderService offs are union busting, watch the bullets fly. Hungry Mexican. Dead Gypsy.
Known to Police - As a representative of OPSEU and CUPE, I disagree with the way non-unionized security guards trying to do the best with the knowledge and tools empowered to them must face oppression in the form of the militarization of information sharing by undocumented workers involved in the intelligence community. If the ROMA and LA RAZA visa issue has not been settled soon, more m*rder and d*ath will result as the result of Thomas the Tank Engines' yellow bus(t). Let me tell you how it is, if you are going to continue to distribute torture techniques amongst non-unionized GOOD COP BAD COPS between Hamilton PD and Toronto Police Service, expect violence for the sake of killing. Comfort Zone, consider this your first legal notice. Ending the war on Tibet requires more than cab calling and water sales. If one ROMA or LA RAZA goes dead or missing because CborderService offs are union busting, watch the bullets fly. Hungry Mexican. Dead Gypsy.
Well, if the shoe fits...but I have to say, with each post you're reaching new heights (or is it lows?) of douchebaggery, it's hilarious, please continue as I'm really bored at work. Still waiting for that rational defence of criminal vandalism though.
And if nothing else, you're confirming my opinion of taggers and their defenders as petulant, whiny, talentless, self-obsessed, and narcissistic children.
Colonialism requires these food security agro-kneehighs to keep shouting. Critical that Lindsay Ontario painted fire hydrants never get a shout out. What a black vagina finder producer this terrible article is.
Plenty of legal graph art to check out in the city, if you're really going to whine over such a non-issue. The BBC festival (and upcoming Manifesto festival) boast some of our best artists... if you want to talk squalor and disfigurement of our city, talk garbage strike - not graph art.
The idea that in 2009 spray paint graf is some kind of outre creative alternative to "mainstream" art is patently ridiculous, with established graf writers having gallery shows and a major "mainstream" cultural institution running a big show largely centered around graf idioms (Housepaint at the ROM) the 1977 NYC comment is spot on but for the wrong reasons. There is street art being made that still challenges but none of it is spray paint graf and the form has been creatively dead for a long time.
"Graf. artists in galleries, corporate graf. in alleys, I don't know what to think-" (Blek Le Rat)
Instead of graffiti, we need more ads covering every surface area of our city! C'mon people!
This comment section has got to be one of the best reads so far on the site - especially with the spam that managed to get in (which, ironically, makes a lot more sense than a lot of the actual comments...lol)
blogto has become a haven for dry snitching
pac mall, now this... if i didnt just start reading up on this blog a year ago i'm sure i'd find more places to avoid immigrants and artists
Toronto's finest has impressed me once again
Still love the Mobility Depot spot visible on the Scarborough RT just outside of Lawrence East station(big angry face while clutching a lightning bolt). I went to high school with one of the dudes who made it, and while they cut a deal with the local business owners to incorporate their logo, 15 years later Mobility Depot is gone and the mural remains virtually untouched.
And while there's the usual crop who think a sloppy tag = graffiti, check out a film called 'Stations of the Elevated' for a look back at the impact some of the early pioneers like COPE and KASE had on NYC in the 70s. Call it squalor if you want - art inspires.
I miss the "Supercalafragilisticespialadoshus" that used to run the entire length of that wall - it was there forever.
this is the stupidest article i've seen in a while. you know what you are, author? a baiting toy. your telling people TO GO OVER ART.
Stupid and A bring the greatest point of this article. This author does not know anything about graff because one does not go over someone. find your own spot if one believes its art why go over it. and now that this person has mentioned this spot it will now be baited out with cops there 24/7. As well this sopt will now probably get buffed because of you good job you just took out a great toronto graff scene. As well to those who think graff is ugly thats fine go out and buff it for all I care. Art is art some people may like some and not others. Also alot of pieces around this city are legal peices paid for by the owner of the store.
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