8 July 2022 – Nature’s art, thrown against downtown walls.
Alley walls, to be precise, with exuberant clusters of wildflowers sprawling against the fences & concrete barriers that divide them from Polite Society — but also showcase them so beautifully.
Like this…
and this…
and this…
and this.
Then I’m out of the alley, looping back east along West 6th — and, suddenly, the wall itself is the art.
And surely the work of some human hand? A wall-to-wall, ground-to-roof triumph of delicate pointillist tracery — perhaps a precursor of our Mural Festival yet to come?
But no.
The art is on the wall, but it is nature’s art after all.
11 June 2022 – A subset of a longer walk home, and, as I wheel left onto West 11th Ave. from Yukon Street, I realize I’m on something close to auto-pilot. I have walked here before, and, even though I am in British Columbia, home of dramatic vistas, there is nothing even remotely dramatic about what’s on offer here.
It’s comfy/relaxed/family-residential all through this neighbourhood, nothing grander than that — though also affluent, one must add, because otherwise you don’t live in a detached home in this city. But it’s low-key, and it’s friendly, and I’m not here to pick a fight.
I decide to observe, really pay attention & observe, this specific five-block micro-culture, this specific June morning, as I spent 20 minutes or so walking east from Yukon to Main Street.
Distinctly amateur, but cheerful (& cheerfully punning) artwork pinned to a hydro pole…
yet another fairy garden at the base of a sidewalk tree…
eco-protest (speaking of “Fairy”) signage…
and beautifully maintained pre-1930s homes whose front porches and wide front steps welcome neighbourly interaction.
I think most of these homes are variations of Craftsman style (check your own impressions on the Vancouver Heritage Foundation’s house styles webpage), though gingerbread-y flourishes on this house…
make me wonder if it’s earlier, perhaps Victorian. I don’t know, don’t hugely care; I just like the friendly mood, both hardscape & softscape, that dominates the street.
and a car-share vehicle and a rubber-tire swing, each poised for its own next adventure as well.
There are bike-only lanes on cross-streets, framed by more poppies and (again, I think) Cow Parsnip…
and, right at Main, giant asparagus.
This is one of my favourite murals. Because: (1) it is by Emily Gray, a local graphic artist who several years ago led a group of us on a terrific street-art tour; and (2) it offers an artist’s version of my “Cambie Loop” walk — west along the far side of False Creek from Science World (that white dome) to the Cambie Bridge, over the bridge, and back east along this near side.
Alas… While I encounter bikes, skate-boards and dragon boats a-plenty on this walk, I have yet to see any giant asparagus.
"Traveller, there is no path. Paths are made by walking" -- Antonio Machado (1875-1939)
"The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes" -- Marcel Proust (1871-1922)
"A city is a language, a repository of possibilities, and walking is the act of speaking that language, of selecting from those possibilities" -- Rebecca Solnit, "Wanderlust: A History of Walking"
WALKING WOMAN 