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?
April is Poetry Month
What remains to be seen, outside the letters, punctuation (or lack thereof), and emotion that spills out onto the page, is a reality to be experienced.
The colours are there — even in a black and white medium of pencil or ink — should you choose to allow yourself to be swayed by another human’s representation of what life was like in the time it was written.
In past or present tense, it makes up for common sense. Poetry is like life itself.
Poetry keeps us alive and wondering, whether we know it or not.
April is Poetry Month
Feel it. See it. Live it.
03/31/2024 j.g.l.