Some Art ~ Some Jazz!

 

We had a little more relaxed morning since we didn't have anything planned that was at a set schedule.  The Art Gallery of Ontario did not open until 10:30 am.  We walked up Dufferin to get to Dundas St. for the streetcar. 

The plan was to get the streetcar at Dundas Street.  That is the street that the AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario) was on.

Yippee, it worked!!  Using our tap credit cards works great.

All the wires for the various street cars.  What a jumble. Apparently, the locals want the street cars out of Toronto.  They slow traffic down because they do not have their own dedicated lanes. 

We got there a little early so we decided to walk up to see the OCAD building (Ontario College of Art Design)

 It was a very interesting building.

They had chairs everywhere.  That was nice.

This artist was Lawren Harris

We looked for all of the Group of Seven's art.  The paintings were scattered all over the art museum. They do not label each piece of art. They had booklets for each room so that you could look up information about the pieces. Their philosophy was that you should get a feel for the art and experience it, not spend time reading about it.

We also found the iconic pine tree painting by Tom Thomson.  He was not one of the original Seven but was invited to join later.

My favorite artist was Rebecca Belmore.  Her work was pretty amazing.

They had a lot of artwork by the indigenous people.  The signage that they had was in 3 languages (Indigenous, English, and French).

"The City of Toronto acknowledges that we are on the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat peoples, and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples."

They had a lot of Henry Moore 

I accidentally wore 2 different sets of earrings.  My friends let me go out in public that way!!  Here is proof. 

Then we went for lunch at the AGO Bistro

Jeanne's Cornish Game Hen

I had a beet salad and a tomato salad

Kris had a Nicoise Salad with trout

Sharon got the Za'atar fries for us all to share.

Sharon had the sweet potato soup and fennel salad.  I did not get a picture.

The temporary artist installation by Sarindar Dhaliwal was interesting.  She is an Indian who immigrated to Canada.  Her art has a fun mixture of Indian, British, and Canadian themes.

This was designed with marigolds.

Note Kodaikanal!!

Her work was very colorful.

Of course, we had to stop in the gift shop before going on.

An interesting piece.  I did not see the description.

We walked through Grange Park where there was a large Henry Moore.

 

Then on to the Umbra store

It had a lot of fun stuff.

We left Umbra and headed towards Graffiti Alley.  It is listed as one of the top 10 sights to see in Toronto.  We saw some interesting things along the way.

Barbie accessories

Graffiti Alley is about 3 blocks long.  It had a lot of very interesting and attractive paintings and then a lot of stuff that was tagged (people spray painting their names everywhere).  

Some pretty amazing art

This whole house was covered.  Some very cute fish.

Attractive tagging.

We were ready to head back for our rest break (MDT).  We got back to Queen Street West to catch the streetcar back to the apartment.

We stopped at Bom Dia Cafe to buy some breakfast pastries.  

Sharon and Kris stopped for gelato at Tutto Gelato. This place is about 2 blocks from our place.  It is a brand-new place. It opened about 3 days ago.

Ah - we could sit down and put our feet up.  We decided to keep it simple tonight for dinner.  We ate left-over Michelin star Indian food, cheese and crackers, hummus, and wine.  (I guess we will have to make another wine stop tomorrow).  It was nice to relax.  

I decided to switch to Uber to see how it compares to Lyft.   The Lyft App is easier to use, with fewer ads.  But we certainly had no problem calling an Uber.  We went to The Rex for a night of jazz. 

                                                       Saxophones

Setting up

Neil Swainson - Bass

Terry Clarke - drummer

Pat Labarbera - Saxophone

Alex Dean - bass clarinet and saxophone (this is the bass clarinet)

Brian Dickinson - piano

They got started at 8:30 pm and did 2 one hour sets. "Tribute to John Coltrane by the Pat Labarbera Quintet" 

Alex and Pat

Brian

Neil

Pat

Alex really moved around a lot when he played.

I never could get a picture of Terry on the drums when he was playing.

Alex is on the bass clarinet.  He could not move around so much when he was playing this because he had to have it resting on a stand, since it was so long.

We called an Uber to go home.  We were home close to midnight.  We have met some very interesting Uber and Lyft drivers.