Art is everywhere, if you choose to look.
Lately, as the weather becomes a slightly more pleasurable each day, I am taking the opportunity to get back out on the streets of Toronto to observe what really happens here.
Last Thursday, on the way to an appointment, I was fortunate to notice something I had never seen before.
Just about any day you’ll find Ross Ward hunched over on Yonge Street tending to his art. The ‘Birdman of Toronto’ has been a fixture on these streets in various locations for well over a decade, and during each day he crafts, and sells, palm-sized birds.
Once only a hobby — this is now more than whittling — Ward carves out shapes of common birds from reclaimed wood. There is always a piece in progress, and always a small flock for sale on his concrete workspace.
Perhaps in our day-to-day journeys, we don’t look close enough at all the people. We don’t often observe enough to see art just happening here and there on our landscape. I’ve wandered this street how many times and only last week did I notice the man. I saw him again on the weekend.
Appreciating the beauty of his work, I bought a bird as a gift for someone . . . or maybe a souvenir for myself to one day remember my time in this city.
Couldn’t we all use more memorable hand-made art?
Mondays are just young Fridays
Not everything is what it was or where it was, when you last paid attention.
Places, people, predicaments altered by time and grace, take on new meanings as they grow older.
A poem started long ago, misplaced in a wrinkled notebook, reads differently now or needs a little more thought. The page holds so many corrections. Perhaps there were reasons it was abandoned (besides utter carelessness or contempt).
Even the moon looks different than it has before. It, like you, has changed. Like you, it prefers the darkness and does not always wish to be seen. Like that poem.
The intentions of a month ago, or sooner, are different now.
Intentions are like that. The perspective of your reality will allow further thought when faced with an ever-changing environment.
Life is like that. Pay attention.
01/29/2024 j.g.l.