So there are these vents for the subway at the front of Nathan Phillips Square…

(For those not familiar with Toronto, this is city hall. You may recognize the building from the climax of Resident Evil- Apocalypse?)

…and these vents produce a continual upflow of wind. I’ve been meaning to do a theme week around this high-profile-spot-with-free-harvestable-energy for forever. Actually, I DID do one of the projects last summer, but I’ve been sitting on the other projects….. and as a result I’ve been beaten to the punch! Again! Arrgh!

Ah well.

I’m still putting my stuff up.

This is the first stencil I’ve made that is a repeat.

I’ve been wanting to make a repeat since I read about a brilliantly simple technique in a Katazome book.

Here’s how it works-

Make your design. This will represent the design:

PC

Cut it in half down the middle.

P[C

Move the pieces like this:

C[P

And now the outside edges line up perfectly! Just smooth out the center, connect and clean things up, and you’re good to go! If you want a vertical repeat, just do the same thing with a horizontal cut!

Brilliant, no? It’s one of those head-slapping “Of Course!” techniques.

I like how this is at city hall, and the earliest political gathering places were fires. Originally, I wanted this to be a big bonfire, with the walls made of logs- but it turns out that logs are really hard to come by in the city… especially for free… So it’s a fire pit instead.