I'm continuing my tour of the Evergreen Brick Works and showing this wonderful steel crow found atop the direction sign. Once again there was no artist name given but he looked so good against that blue sky, don't you think? If you look on the map, the kiln house is that very long structure to the right giving you an idea of just how long those kilns were!
Taking part in Signs, Signs. Click here for more signs.
Since Evergreen's mission is to promote sustainability, it isn't surprising that they have an abundance of rainbarrels/cisterns on the Brick Works site and several of them have been painted by artists unknown. I checked all around on these 2 but could find no signature and I didn't want to trample the wildflowers growing around them. I would love to have a rainbarrel like these ones!
This mural is found in the parking lot at the Evergreen Brick Works on one of the supports for a railway bridge that runs over the Don Valley. I'm not sure who the artist is since the only writing is "Fatima" so I assume that this is meant to be Our Lady Of Fatima, who was said to have appeared to 3 little shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal in 1917. It is beautifully done and the rust washing down from the bridge gives a perfect touch to it.
Taking part in Monday Murals. Click here for more murals.
There is a lot of art sprinkled about the Evergreen Brick Works site including a lot of graffiti but also some great murals and this wonderful representation of a pair of hiking boots by artist David Hind, made using reclaimed materials. It is a tribute to the geologist A. P. Coleman who explored the site during the 1920s and discovered a new interglacial period which came to be known as the Don Formation and which was laid down 120,000 years ago.
Most of the industrial equipment from the brickworks has disappeared but the kilns used to fire the bricks remain mainly intact in the 52,000 sq ft kiln house. The kilns are quite impressive and were originally 376 ft long and are known as tunnel kilns in which carts loaded with raw bricks would enter at one end of the tunnel and move along over the next 2 1/2 days going through areas of rising temperatures and then cooler ones until exiting as hard fired bricks at the other end. There have been some modifications made to the kilns by Evergreen since it seems that they have been shortened to provide better access to parts of the building. This is a shot looking down the interior of one of the kilns towards the starting point and shows the wonderful arched brick roof and the tracks on which the carts would have rolled.
The Evergreen Brickworks is an environmental community centre located in the Don Valley in the centre of the city in one of our many ravines. This was the site of commercial brick works for over 100 years supplying most of the bricks to build the older parts of Toronto, using the abundant clay and shale that was found on the property. By the 1980s the clay & shale was mostly gone and the property fell into the hands of developers but was expropriated by the Toronto Region Conservation Authority in 1987 and they proceeded to fill in parts of the old quarries to create a wonderful park with 3 large ponds and native plants. The industrial parts of the brick works were leased to Evergreen in 1997 and they have turned the abandoned buildings into a centre that "inspires and equips visitors to live, work and play more sustainably". I'll show you an inside shot tomorrow.
I probably wouldn't have noticed this wee truck if it hadn't been for the colourful paint job on its box but on further inspection it turned out to have right hand drive which is very unusual here. It is a Subaru Sambar Mini truck that must have been imported directly from Japan and is being used for supply runs by a Ossington Ave restaurant. So cute!
