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No Parking

11" x 15", watercolour, 1999, private collection

I "discovered" Main Street Unionville on a mid-1990s bike ride to my cousin's house in nearby Markham; he wasn't home so I kept riding, kind of aimlessly exploring, and came across this amazing little stretch of town, seemingly preserved from the turn of the century. Many of the buildings are shops and such, but the façades, are preserved and/or renovated to remain aesthetically unified with each other. It makes for a very pleasant walk of about five blocks or so.

Often riding my bike or driving my car out to Main Street Unionville to relax and "get away" for a couple of hours (in all seasons; in fact, autumn is stunning there), I started taking pictures and eventually did some paintings of some of the buildings (the "music shop" I painted as part of Matt Osborne's self-titled CD is based on a building very similar to this one).



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