GOOD LOVE

Hi Caroline and Vanessa,

My kids (Sam, 7 and Maeve, 5) and I happily play and learn together at home and out and about in the city. One of the initiatives we’ve recently joined is the Public Art Project, a collaborative project by iEARN-Pangea (http://publicart.iearn.cat/p/info.html) When I asked the kids if they had any ideas about which piece of public art they’d like to learn more about and share with others, their immediate response was ‘the art bikes!’

As you’ve so deservedly been covered widely in the media, we were able to learn a great deal about The Good Bike project. We also plan to take photos of our favourite ones, make a sound recording of their locales and then an audio recording of all we’ve learned and post it to the site. The kids had a few remaining questions though and have asked that I email them to you. (They’re shy, but if you did want to meet up to answer their questions in person, I’m pretty sure they’d be thrilled - though they may not utter a world :) ) If you’ve time to send us your responses, that would be fantastic.

1) Do you remember your first bike?
2) Why do you paint them just with solid colours and not use stripes or polka dots or other designs?
3) Did you think about putting baskets on all of the bikes and instead of just flowers, also plant vegetables so they could be mini community gardens? We could help.
4) What is your favourite piece of public art - in Toronto or anywhere?
5) Why can’t more art be free (inside art too) so everyone can see it?
6) Do you ride your bike in Toronto? What colour is it? Do you think Rob Ford will learn how important biking and bike lanes are?

Thanks so much for this - and for bringing thoughtful colour to our streets.

Alison (and Sam and Maeve)