toronto

This Is Not A Toy

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Back in February, I went to check out This Is Not A Toy: the latest exhibition at the Design Exchange curated by John Wee Tom, DX Associate Curator Sara Nickleson [and Guest Curator Pharrell Williams] with works from artists such as Junko Mizuno, Takashi Murakami, Huck Gee and KAWS… just to name a few!

I’ve seen blind boxes and vinyl toys around for some years now [who remembers the Kidrobot room at CiRCA?], but I don’t think it really piqued my interest until a vacation to California when we paid multiple visits to shops such as Tokidoki and Kidrobot that I started to become more familiar with vinyl toys as a form of contemporary art. Fast forward four years later, I’ve amassed a little army of Unicornos [I love unicorns!] and random phone plugs, keychain charms and zipper pulls of characters such as Gloomy Bear, Cactus Pups, Jibibuts… even My Little Pony figures. Hah! As for the Dunnys, Munnys, Labbits and Marvel collabos… I just live vicariously through my boyfriend’s blindbox purchases.

This Is Not A Toy: Designer Toys

Although my little collection is currently limited to mini figures and random blind boxes [and a DIY Munny that is still blank since I can’t decide what I want to do with it yet], it was really neat to see some designer toys from a whole bunch of very talented artists. My boyfriend really liked the selection of Huck Gee figures at the exhibit, and I was pleased to see Junko Mizuno’s pieces there as well. Some of the vinyl toys displayed are actually from Pharrell William’s personal collection, two of them being the Daft Punk be@rbricks as shown above. It’s a great exhibit to visit if you want to learn more about the culture behind designer toys and to see a really interesting mix of artwork in a gallery space. The Dunny walls are awesome!

This Is Not A Toy: Figures by Artists

Magic Pony also has a pop-up shop at the main lobby of the Design Exchange. Maybe one day, I’ll get my hands on one of those Junko prints to call my own!

The exhibit runs until May 19th, so if you haven’t gone yet… there’s still time! If you love your designer toys, mini figures, urban vinyls – whatever you wanna call it – this is a fun exhibit worth seeing.

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Design Exchange
234 Bay Street
Toronto ON
(416)363-6121

What’s SUP? Stand-Up Paddleboarding!

SUP at Sunset

In the beginning of August, I tried out Stand-Up Paddleboarding [or SUP, for short] along with my boyfriend and some of our good friends. Initially, we had scheduled to do this for my birthday back in June, but it rained After a few times trying to decide on a schedule that works best for everyone [planning things gets much harder as time passes *ahem… getting older*; everyone just gets busier and busier!], we finally found a Saturday evening where we could all go and check out paddle boarding for the first time.

To start things off, 3 out of 4 of us don’t even know how to swim properly… [haha!] this automatically means surfing is unfortunately not an option for me. Although it looks fun, I can’t tread water and that wouldn’t be the greatest idea. I just can’t seem to bring myself to go any deeper than tiptoe level! [Anxious much?] I’ll just stick to floating around and swimming from point A to point B in shallow areas Plus, come on… I live in Toronto, not California. Because of this, I thought SUP was a great alternative to try out. I’ve been white water rafting, canoeing and kayaking before so as long as there’s lifejackets involved, it’s safe enough for me!

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Summerlicious TO 2013: Bloke & 4th

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Last week, we checked out Bloke & 4th for this year’s Summerlicious with some friends. If you don’t already know, Toronto has two great events for “foodies” every year during summer and winter for a select period of time. A nice selection of restaurants offer Prix Fixe menus for lunch and/or dinner and is a great time to go around and discover the wonderful cuisine this city has to offer. We haven’t been to Bloke before, but had a pleasant first experience at this resto-lounge.

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