ALTERNATIVE COMICS Street Art Chronology 2006 part 2

HEY APATHY! Alternative Comics Street Art

Part 2 continued from yesterday

The 2006 season lasted well into the fall with a brief relapse in good weather in time for the holiday season. Following the Edward Day show and the Cambridge Galleries Solo Exhibition, I continued to work on the streets performing weekend murals and working on pen drawings. The weather remained friendly until late in October and I happily held regular hours on the sidewalks of Queen West. It was an incredible experience to sit comfortably out doors in the fall as I witnessed the city change seasons and faces. All sorts of new people had arrived from all over as new students and new businesses started their year. The leaves changed slowly but assuredly though the temperature remained seasonably remarkable until the sudden November winds.

MONSTER COMICS STREET ART 06

Without warning the streets turned cold and uninhabitable, the likes of I’d not seen for near two years. I returned to my studio satisfied for the season and decided to work on HEY APATHY! Book One. However the monstrous gusting passed rather quickly and the dampened weather recuperated in time for the Christmas shopping. I got back out on the street mid-way through November and found the holiday season worth weathering the colder weather. I would work until 7 each night with a lantern after dark. It was certainly getting colder but business was booming as many a weird drawing went off as gifts.

The most unusual occurrence erupted during my winter street art exhibits as the weather took a strange yet welcome new course. The winter let up and the sun started rising beaming temperatures in the low teens reminiscent of spring. For the last two weeks of December I set up a 12 x 12 foot display on Queen Street West across from the Silver Snail and painted giant pictures under a beautifully sunny and windless sky. It was as warm as 10 degrees Celsius and the streets were consumed by pedestrians more than in all my previous encounters. It is a very rare occasion for Toronto to experience such fine weather during the busiest shopping event of the year and every one took advantage. Including me, thanks to the unseasonable warm and dry climate I was able to do live paintings all throughout the month of December. It was like fourteen busy Saturdays all strung in a row. I never met so many people nor received such excited reactions, especially those from the younger awestruck viewers. Following a two week long street art extravaganza I finally retired to my studio for the winter and started putting together the artwork for my first HEY APATHY! Comic. The weather stayed relatively mild for the better part of the winter but there was no way I was going back out on the streets until spring. more at HEY APATHY!

 

Cover of HEY APATHY! BOOK ONE/13