I’ve been passing by this park at the corner of Mount Pleasant and St. Clair for years. I remember when it was a streetcar loop. You can still see steel remnants of the tracks on Mount Pleasant.
This morning I decided to stop and smoke a joint. Just kidding. Of course, that would be illegal.
But there is something weirdly alluring about this chunk of green, officially Loring and Wyle Park, and dedicated to the sculptors of the same names.
Frances Loring and Florence Wyle hailed from the American Mid-west and moved to Toronto in 1913. The art studio they lived in nearby on Glenrose (an old abandoned church) became a centre for the city’s literati as well as headquarters of the Sculptors Society of Canada. I imagine the two hosted a few great parties in their day.
Loring and Wyle were prolific artists, most famously for war memorials and their series of sculptures on workers in the munitions industry. Their claim to fame: pushing sculpture as an art form in an era when it was considered more a curiosity.
Loring and Wyle Park features four works, including a bust of Loring by Wyle, and one of Wyle by Loring.
Harvester, a vaguely homoerotic piece by Loring, and Young Girl, another sexually suggestive carving, completes the foursome.[rssbreak]
