Location: Trinity Bellwoods Park and Queen Street West
All along Queen Street West from Trinity Bellwoods Park with artists tents, to business windows with installations, CAMH grounds to Parkdale, the annual Queen Street West Art Crawl was promoting arts to people walking along the street. The talents of local artists, each one with her/his own tent and table were on display to the public. This event is organized by the BIA (business improvement association) operating in the neighbourhood and hope to attract people into their area through the arts which will then improve the businesses operating along Queen Street West. Events, especially outdoor events in parks and on the streets, are approved the city of Toronto for improving the neighbourhoods where they are held and for promoting multiculturalism. Art Crawl has been celebrated for many years according to one of its promoters from WestQueenWest. He was handing out cards with the top 10 artists selected by the association for the public to vote for the Best Artist. There were a lot of artists with imagination and talent in various media: sculpture, painting, photo, mixed media, cloth, glass, metal, etc. Which one could be determined as the Best Artist of the year? There were 2 who were not even on the list: one had strange creatures made of ceramic/mixed media which looked like they should be in a clay animation movie and the other had a 3d face photo installation whose eyes moved as you walk along the street, on the window of SB store. Imagination and uniqueness along with skill would possibly lead to the popular public vote, but not necessarily so. Olivia Chow of the NDP party was there and apparently, she is an artist turned politician who went to OCAD but decided to change the world and made the switch. Artists who are idealistic and socially aware instead of living in their own head space may possibly follow this route too!
