Orangeville's Public Art

Orangeville’s free stuff is better than its paid stuff. Over 70 public art installations town-wide, of which more than 35 are carved tree sculptures — animals, people and creatures cut from standing local trees by artists from across Ontario. Named pieces include Dragon Timber, Coyotes, Nature’s Unity and Pelicans.

The one to go out of your way for

The Mantis Queen, 200 Lakeview Court. Seven metres tall, one tonne, with arms that spin and rotate in the wind. By award-winning sculptor Ron Baird, it was commissioned for a private Dufferin County residence, donated anonymously to the Town, and installed in spring 2017 at the edge of the conservation lands near Island Lake.

It is the most striking single object in Orangeville, and because it isn’t downtown, most visitors never see it.

Utility box art

The programme launched in 2016 with an annual call for artists open to Dufferin County residents. Look for Joy Ride Sidecar by Christina Clare, Dufferin Bovines by Wendy Reid, and For the Love of Dogs and Cats by Michele Taras. Ten more murals line the indoor walking track at the Alder Recreation Centre.

Statues and monuments

Bravery Park — a bronze of a Canadian soldier kneeling before two Afghan children who present him with a butterfly, mounted at the centre of a Canadian Victoria Cross. Sculpted by Donna Pascoe and Peter Turrell of Grand Valley with input from serving soldiers. The butterfly is a Giant Swallowtail, chosen to represent new beginnings through change. braverypark.ca

Orange Lawrence — the town’s founder, in the eastern Broadway median opposite Town Hall. Seven and a half feet on a base, also by Pascoe and Turrell: coat over his left shoulder, sleeves rolled, plans in hand, about to build his mill on Mill Street.

Indigenous Medicine Wheel Garden — adjacent to Bravery Park.

The three Broadway medians

Designed by landscaping students at Humber Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, the medians tell Orangeville’s arc from forest to mill village to town.

• East — the Orange Lawrence statue and a pergola with stone columns and a white cedar roof.
• Centre — the clock tower. A marble timepiece weighing over 900 kg, built and installed on the old post office in 1936, where it stayed until the building was demolished in 1963. It then sat atop Town Hall from 1980 to 1993.
• West — the four-directional waterfall, running spring through fall. Water flows four ways to represent the Credit, Nottawasaga, Humber and Grand headwaters, and a chute feeds a symbolic waterwheel. The rougher east and west faces deliberately show how water moves differently through the area. It is the best public monument to the town’s actual geography.

Two free walking tours cover most of this on foot — see Orangeville’s self-guided tours.