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Forest Walk includes eight 1/2 inch thick steel sections ranging in length from 16' to 20' and is divided by seven 8' high by 1' wide coloured glass fins, each 1 1/2 inches thick. Each section of the glass is a different vibrant colour. The colour of the glass sections are be blue, yellow, red, turquoise, light green, pink, and light purple. The cut steel sections are painted dark copper brown. The water and plasma cuts depicts the imagery and content of Forest Walk. To illuminate the piece at night, each coloured glass panel has channeled into their sides, LED strip lights. This lighting will make the glass brilliantly glow pure colour.
Forest Walk is located on the south side of Wellesley Central Park between the park and the Rekai Centre. This is at the intersection of Wellesley Avenue and Sherbourne st. in Toronto. Forest Walk was not conceived as a wall to contain, separate or delineate, but rather a membranous screen that ascribes transcendence. Forest Walk has a pleasant, inspiring and rejuvenating effect for the residents and visitors of this multi-cultural area. Resembling a serene walk through one of Toronto's many scenic ravines, each of the eight sections of steel is cut to depict the temporal shift of the seasons and day; from early morning, to day, to evening.
The nuanced references to the many cycles of Forest walk™ echo and celebrate universal systems of growth and life. The eight sections acknowledge also the eight struggles of the Wellesley Central Hospital. Rather than tell its story, it promotes and prolongs its spirit of dedication to wellness, health, and benevolence. In doing so it is not sentimental or cliché, but a lasting, enduring monument celebrating the activities of the sites history of compassion, hope, and innovation while simultaneously beckoning the same from the future. The porosity allows one to see beyond, giving a sense of promise.
Section 1 Night: A starry night sky, references to constellations. Section 2 Dawn: Transition: from winter to spring, spruce trees to plane trees. A flock of birds usher in spring. Section 3 Early morning: A chandelier in the forest, an urban retreat. Section 4 Day: Spring scene with birds roosting in plane trees behind the original Homewood Estate Fence. Section 5 Mid-Day: Late spring and early summer where Larch trees are populated by figures engaged in various activities, assisting and supporting one another. Transitions into a densely filled herbal and palm grove. Section 6 Dusk: Late summer is depicted. A tree house is surrounded by greenery and hidden bugs. Two street lights in the distance as night approaches. Section 7 Night/Bats: scene with a colony of bats merging into the canopy of a grove of trees, representing onset of fall. Section 8 Late fall: A return to the constellations of the night sky, the end of a cycle.
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