What is Art? A Reflection on Nuit Blanche 2026

I rarely say 'I could make that' whenever I see art in the wild, but Nuit Blanche always manages to be the exception.

I remember when one of the art exhibits in Nathan Phillips Square was just pallets of garbage.  There was a very long description of what the pallets meant.  Alex said "They just dropped off literal garbage on the ground and called it art."

And they really did.

 It is clear that 2026 was a poor year in terms of funding. I am pretty sure the local TDSB grade 3 classroom got more funding for their art program than Nuit Blanche did this year.  The cluster of exhibits were mostly situated in Old City Hall, and one other location. Some of the exhibits were *cough* "re-imaginings" of previous years. This would be less of an eye-roll if there wasn't a literal horde of artists who would love to be a main display at Nuit Blanche.

Here are pictures I took of the displays I saw and my feelings of them.

 

 

 

 

 

The idea was interesting, but it really was just a projector slide show of random thoughts. 

 

 

This was supposed to be an inflated seal skin. Once I knew what it was, I thought it was pretty cool. Otherwise, I thought of it as kind of like an alien balloon? I thought it was an alien.... 

 

 

This was an 'activation' (marketing) by Crayola for their crayons. There was a 200 PERSON LINE-UP TO DRAW ON CARDBOARD. Congrats to Crayola, you tapped into the Toronto desire to stand in line. 

 

 

 

I thought this was interesting, but the more I looked at it, the more I thought about how it was all on Hudson Bay blankets, and this bothered me for some reason. I think the images on them are nice, though, and some thought was put into this. 

 

 

 

 

This blown up square was a genuinely cool idea.  It was all about the forgotten and closed landmarks in Toronto, like Sam the Record Man or Ontario Place. 

 

 

The was a Grandma memory garden hanging in the sky and it was pretty cool. 

 

 

When I read about this, I thought it was the stupidest idea I ever heard. Looking at it in person, though, it was actually really inspiring. It looked like a real accident, where an alien landed in a car. Kudos to the artist, you impressed me. 

 

 

One of the coolest things was the Y2K party that looked amazing, that I was too tired to wait for it to open at 1030pm. 

 

 

 

 

After looking at the art, I took pictures of other things that inspired me that night. 

 

 

 

 

The AGO Leather Elephant that is made of copper always impresses me. Even Alex was impressed, he had never seen it. 

 

 

I just need to know what Heather did.  Art! 

 

 

 

The text, the image, the inability to find the door since there wasn't one nearby, chef's kiss! 

  

 

 

 

Random art piece in a corner we walked by on the way to Union Station.

 

 

 

One of the reasons I love Nuit Blanche is that it really forces you to walk around your city and look. And we did a lot of looking. Saw lots of cool things, but definitely not enough.

 

Sometimes art is what you find on the way to look at other art, and that is half the fun of an event like this. 

Another birthday, another year of being an adult

 This year had lots of surprises:

•  My back hurts
• Some foods now bother me when I try and sleep at night
• I can't even look at alcohol sideways without a headache
• My hair continues to disappear and that hair that stays can't decide if it is white or grey
• My skin is aging and I notice it
• I have noticed times when my energy levels have caused me to make mistakes I don't notice until much later 

All superficial body things, but more noticeable every year.

And I feel like this year was a year of thinking about my body.  Suddenly all the coworkers don't look older than me, instead we all look 'similar ages' and we are all trying to manage getting older in our own ways.

I'm not always morose around my birthday, but this year has been a year of 'being an adult.' And I mean that in the best and worst possible ways.  

 Filling out all the paperwork necessary for being an adult. Dealing with family and friend issues that only happen when you're an adult.  Being disappointed and still choosing to love people and respond with love, knowing you could get hurt again.  Having the future revealed to you with little hints about what could be possible, versus things that will never happen again.

I am proud of myself for trying to make the most of this summer. I still am not a summer person. I could care less where the sun goes as long as it isn't nuclear winter. No sun, no problem.  But I spent a lot of time outside.  Most of it doing peasant work that needed doing around the house.

I spent a lot of my time this summer gardening, and it sort of was our hobby this summer, and quite fun. We tried a lot of things, and maybe 25% of them worked, but the 25% that did work, worked well. And it bodes well for next year.  The best thing I planted this year was lemon thyme which grew amazingly. The lavender we grew tried to die, and then eventually found its spirit sometime in August. The mixed potted plants we did thrived. The bush I bought grew a little, it might grow a lot next year if it survives the winter.

The one sunflower that lived to the end of the summer (the birds, rabbit and squirrels destroyed the rest at various life cycles) was just snipped by a squirrel this past Friday, robbing me of my ONE JOY I was waiting for this summer from my garden. >:(

I planted lots of native plants, and allowed certain kinds of native plants that are easy to remove if necessary, which blocked out a lot of the thistle that grew last year.   Sometimes the best thing to grow is the weed that looks the nicest and grows the slowest, and is good for the bees.

I find all my worries are adult worries. I care less than I used to about some things, and more about others. Overall, this year has been lonely in some ways.  But I'm ok with that because there have been times of great joy and blessings, too. 

More than anything I want good things for young people, for people growing up now. It is the one thing I think about all the time, and about how there are so many people my age, and older, who are shaping the world they will get to live in.  And it looks difficult, and that makes me sad. Since we should all be working to make a world where kids can smile.

I have been working on several creative projects, while putting my Youtube channel on the backburner. I'm very nervous about AI, and it is kind of a buzzkill for me creating that kind of video or thought essay on book right now. I'll have to revisit what I do with it in the future.

More than anything, I am just a person trying to evolve and change with what I know it means now, a little more, to be an adult and carry on in life. 

 

Today was Very Good Day

 It's nice to have a day where everything goes right, and you feel sort of in-sync with the world.

 

Today was one of those days....I feel very accomplished and very pleased with myself. 

Midnight Sun

 One of the fun songs of the summer (that was released last year as song of the summer, but it now gaining traction) is Midnight Sun.

 

It's the midnight sun-kissed skin under the red sky
Layin' on your chest like this
Hold me like the pebbles in your hand, initials in the sand, yeah
Summer isn't over yet 

 

Today it is very humid and 30-35 for the next three or four days.  We had friends and family visiting, and we were lucky it was such beautiful weather, and not too hot.

But now it is hot, hot summer weather.

And it makes me think of all those places experiencing severe heat waves and I'm hoping they're ok and make it through it. 

The world is a very hot place, now and for the foreseeable future...but for now here the weather is summery and fun, and feels like the beginning of a true, hot summer.

The time when watching fireworks, or BBQs, or other great events are really quite fun. Summer is a fun season, and I like summer activities, but I think I will always be a fall and winter person most of all.

Get Lost Spring!

 I think I am just having one of those weeks.

My allergies are bothering me, I'm not getting enough sleep.  I am officially hitting 'It's spring and I'm over it.'

It's one of the saddest things in life, during a time when it is fun and great weather to be outside, I'm happiest sitting inside, waiting for the season to be over.

The worst part isn't the physical symptoms, it's the mental fog that comes with 2-4 weeks of spring.  Today I zoned out in the middle of multiple tasks....even MORE than usual.  

Sometimes I guess you just have to be miserable.

 

And right now...I feel majorly miserable! 

 

We are in the time for war

Until very recently, we lived in a world of peace.  Not a world that values peace.  A world that had a desire to remain peaceful. And that peace was based on economics, on the kind of wars that allow for another try.  A chance to win even in extreme circumstances.

In January I was filled with a deep sadness, and that lasted into February. It was because I knew a time of war was coming.  The rules of capitalism and the ruling class demanded it.  

And the worst part is, 'normal people' like me feel increasingly sad because regardless of politics, no one asked for this.  From COVID onwards, there has been a clawback from inflation and publicly traded companies to try and get more from people who have nothing left.

As China rises as a country, and as US loses ground, in the middle is everyone else.  And the only way to gain ground for a country like the US is what it always does when the economy is down, which is war. 

 Now we have moments that say it is a time of war:

• Palestinians have been decimated
• Both Canada and Greenland have been considered for takeover 
• Iran is being bombed
• Dubai (and other middle eastern states) are being bombed in retaliation
• The ruling class of Iran has been killed
• Cuba is being starved for resources 

The deepest sadness for me is thinking about how Canadians have everything they could need, and yet we always seem to be less than we could be, as a country.

In the future, I wonder if Canada will exist. I wonder what the world will be in 20 years.  

I'm grateful for all the things I have.  But I only have those things because I live next to the one with the bombs. 

I live a very happy and sheltered life.  My life is full of peace, but I recognize the world is not. And it is not the ordinary person that wants a world at war. 

 

 

Searching for Meaning

 As I get older, I think a lot about different issues, or different concepts, I guess.

 When I young, I was concerned with what was good.

When I was in my 30s, I was concerned with what was political, community and independence.

Now, I think a lot about beauty.

I think a lot about beauty.

 

But not the definition of it, but the experience of it, the ephemeral meaning of glimpsing something just out of view.

Sometimes I look at a plant, and I'm much more drawn in than before.  Sometimes I'm in a crowd in a concert, and I can feel something on the edge of the music that is about the human experience of music, being together, of letting go and being present.

When I think about art, and what an artist tries to create, I think about beauty. What is beautiful, what is something that touches on the divine through images, words, poetry, music, performance.

Because as I'm nearing the end of my 100 book channel I did on my Youtube channel (more videos coming! Many more!) I'm almost done reading some of the hardest and most challenging books that people define as classics in the English canon.

I've started drawing again.  Or more, I suppose, more for fun. I'm rediscovering my own things that I enjoy and find fun in a way I haven't felt in a long time.  I suppose it's the result of me growing up into (somewhat) the kind of person I want to be.

I want to be the kind of person who sees beauty in everything, that finds the moments precious and worth understanding. I want to create my own little pieces of something to share with others for the sake of nurturing and creating understanding between people who feel as isolated as I do, sometimes.

Because in the search for art, for beauty, many times I feel alone, as anyone who wishes they were an artist, and someone understood.