Arts

On Friday I had to go to the optometrist. Without getting into all the details, I was a little angry because the optometrist did follow up on my check up that I had in May. But there was another patient who was a lot angrier. She had a bit of a tantrum in the waiting room which left everybody feeling a little frayed.

Anyway, I decided the best way to counteract the toxicity of that interaction was to double down on kindness. I opened doors for people, said hi to my fellow pedestrians, told folks with cool outfits that I liked their look.

The cool thing that happens when you interact with the people of Toronto, you meet interesting humans. In this case, I made the acquaintance of Ross Ward, a gentleman who whittles birds from salvaged wood. These sculptures  are very minimalist but they have a lot of personality.

I met Ward at the corner of Queen and University carving and selling his birds. “They call me the Birdman of Toronto,” he told me (I googled him, it’s true). He’s been wood carving since he was a kid, but only started selling his work downtown about seven years ago.

Ward was doing booming business on Friday. I bought a this medium-sized bird myself. Ward moves to different locations but told me he liked the Queen/University corner. So if you need a bird, and you are downtown, you know where to go.