Death by Chocolate

Continuing along the sign theme from the last post, I can’t help wonder if its just me or is this sign very strange? I saw this on the Saturday before Easter Sunday and it caught my eye because it is unusual to see the words ‘chocolate’ and ‘tomb’ together. I thought at first I must [...]

Made by hand

Alas the ‘on the way to school’ blog returns after a short hiatus. The winter semester is off to a great start and now there is time to focus on other things, such as this lovely blog. A big focus at our art school is making things by hand. Computer technology is great and is [...]

Chamberlain crush

Not to dwell on the subject of artists who have passed, but it is necessary to acknowledge John Chamberlain who died December 21, 2011. The first memory I have of seeing a ‘real’ Chamberlain piece was above a desk in the office of a very pristine Los Angeles gallery space in the late 1980′s. I [...]

Frankenthaler puddles

Whenever a favourite artist of mine dies I start thinking a lot about their work and their impact on the artworld. My reveries soon make me see their work everywhere. How can one look at a puddle and not think of Helen Frankenthaler? I remember when I went to art school in the 1980′s and [...]

Cat gum

There comes a time in every blog’s life where the appearance of ‘the cat’ must occur. This sidewalk cat seems to be made from somebody drawing on dried gum which happened to be the shape of a cat. I find myself often looking at the shapes of gum (the way one used to lie on [...]

Occupy Sandwich

When I first saw this bus shelter ad, I was overcome by its unattractiveness. This burger-like construction is lacking the benign, slightly humourous quality of Oldenburg’s giant soft sculpture of a hamburger. There is something insiduous about this sandwich disguised as burger. It’s not just the fact this sandwich contains substances from at least three [...]

Spots and dots

This image is on the wall of a Japanese restaurant near the corner of Quadra and Johnson. Its really simple but interesting to me because I wonder about the motivation of making these little spray painted circles. The spray paint makes them look blurred or out-of-focus; they appear to be disintegrating as you stare at [...]

Street Spiral

The great thing about this site-specific street drawing is that it incorporates the street repair lines. The distinction between the drawn lines and the street repair lines is blurred creating a visual tension that appears to be going unnoticed by this spiral walker. The most renown spiral in the art world would have to be [...]

Urban Ballerina

Its always interesting to see where images can take your imagination. I realize this is a far stretch but when I looked at this green electrical box, I immediately thought of a ballet dancer with the white drips standing in for the tulle of the tutu. And then I tried to think about examples of [...]

Found love

It seems there are a couple of signs of LOVE around Cook St Village. There is also a vertical one on Cook near Rockland. The sign reminds me of an artist I discovered while living in Los Angeles in the late 1980′s, Georges Herms. I was immediately intrigued with Herms’ work because of his restrained [...]