One of my favourite pastimes is watching the swimmers from the bleachers at UofT’s Olympic sized pool. It’s like being at the theatre. Better yet, The Royal Ballet. There’s always that one swimmer that stands out, that moves with the grace of a swan. It’s the repetition that I find so mesmerizing. And the speed. And the effortlessness, as though water is her natural habitat. It’s when two swimmers move in tandem, like a choreographed dance that I am most amazed. Stroke on stroke, breath on breath; two perfectly synced flip turns. I leave feeling a small bit awestruck by what the human body can do.

When you’re a walker you get to know your routes like they’re your friends. There’s the one with the massive pre-historic rocks. And the one with immaculate lawns and a mid-century modern bench. There’s the one where the wild flowers grow. The one where the old, aproned lady stares out from her window. And the one with ever changing graffiti. I know these routes, and I know them well. I pay attention to what they have to show me. A sinuous crack in the pavement; bikes chained to wrought iron; a choir of anemones in full bloom. It’s the walker’s eye. Trained to pay attention. William Eggleston has devoted his life’s work to shooting everyday street scenes and to finding beauty in the mundane. “Perfectly banal, perhaps. Perfectly boring, certainly,” wrote the New York Times in 1976 after Eggleston’s first big exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. Today, he’s widely considered the grandfather of street photography. His quiet, ordinary Kansas streets, shot in the late 70s and 80s, are not unlike the ones we walk today. Concrete, brick, trees and wire.

Maryam Riazi’s sculptural vessels looks like weird little creatures, monsters even. Imagine planters with spikes like dead man’s fingers. Or a six legged bowl. I see beaks and tails and protruding bellies. I like how pops of colour — yellow, turquoise, dusty rose –– weave their way into an otherwise earthy palette. Riazi grew up in the city of Shiraz surrounded by lush, verdant gardens filled with orange trees and blossoming flowers. Nature is a constant source of inspiration. Her work is beautiful and weird and otherworldly.