By Rhonda Riche

In our ongoing quest to highlight the city’s most heart-warming graffiti, we draw your attention to Erin Pryde’s Love photoset on Flickr. Pryde first spotted the “I Love You” series of tags in early 2006. At that time, she “was in a whirlwind of major life changes.” Although Pryde moved to Toronto in 1995, she had a
love/hate relationship with the city for over a decade, but thanks to a move and the graffiti, “love won.” Our own “I Love You” collector Sharon Harris, likens photo collections to a concept album as compared to a single because it has narrative. Pryde discovered Harris’s images through Google, but she also looks for her handmade declarations of love in store windows and indoor spaces. “They are everywhere,” she says. “The conversation ebbs and flows, but its positivity is a constant.” It’s also an ongoing dialogue. The image above was taken at Sneaky Dees. “The amount of work that went into it impressed me, says Pryde. “I still always look to see if that booth is empty so I can sit there when I scarf down a Veggie Eater and some nachos.”
Photo courtesy of Erin Pryde.