Union Hotel

Union Hotel is a new, independent boutique hotel right by Toronto’s Union Station. The hotel’s identity is guided by the city, people coming together, and the neighbourhood’s ties to craft and textiles. When their team reached out about collaborating on artwork for the space that could honour these themes, I knew it was going to be a special project.

I created three hand-drawn, monochrome drawings. One captures the movement of the morning commute at Union Station, with flowing fabrics and overlapping shoes. Another drawing shows a meeting just outside the hotel, its facade visible in the background. The third one plays tribute to Uniform Measure/Stack, a 1997 sculpture by Stephen Cruise honoring the neighbourhood’s textile heritage. It’s a giant thimble with buttons (and now gone tape measure) on the corner of Richmond and Spadina. My drawing features this sculpture—one of the only visible memories of the neighbourhood’s textile craft history—and imagines how it could inspire us today.

Here’s a look at my process (shot by Neil-Anthony Watson) and how the final drawings turned out.