My solution for the Toronto garbage strike

Photos

Toronto Garbage Strike 2009 Souvenir

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As the Toronto city workers strike continues into the 22nd days and still no settlement. I do have a simple solution of this: sell the garbage! The past weekend, I had been at the Nathan Phillips Square which right in front of the Toronto City Hall to take part at the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition. The city hall had been the main location of the city worker’s picket both in front of the city hall entrance and the entrance to the underground parking. During the strike, all meetings with city councilors had been moved away from the city hall to avoid crossing the picket line..

The Toronto outdoor art exhibition is the biggest outdoor art exhibition in Canada and this is the 48th years in the running. With over 500 artists selected by the TOAE committee, every year attached over 100,000 art lovers and tourists for this three days event. However, the show was not run by the city and with artists came from all over the country; it was too important an event to cancel because of the strike. I had brought along a small sample of the “recycle art” with garbage I collected and saved during the garbage strike to display along with my paintings. I thought this could be a timely opportunity to educate the public many of the so called garbage are reusable or recyclable all it need was some imagination.

 I  was not even expecting anyone would buying them but I am very delighted to report not only they bring many smiles and also been pick up by the art collectors. They were even out sold my paintings, since they are far more affordable then my paintings. Many art collectors from both Toronto and from cities all over the world had happily brought my garbage. They appreciate my humor and the skill in it. The big sellers were my coffee cup art and lotto ticket paintings. Imagine, my Toronto garbage will end up hanging on wall and on display cases in far away. places. Often, I thanked them for taking away my garbage, it makes me smile just to think as they return home and declare they had brought back Toronto garbage! In the lobby of the city hall, there is an official Toronto soviure shop, it sells the usual mass produced t-shirt and post card with Toronto on it. I think they should sell something more original like my “Toronto Garbage”!

A feature on me and my recycled art was aired on Global National News on July 14 , just go to their home page and open the news on July 14 and look for "trashy art".