Carmel Cross Canvas Print

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This wooden cross overlooking Carmel Bay is a replica of a cross erected by the 1769 Portola-Crespi expedition as a signal for their supply ship. This replica was erected in 1944 by Harry Downie who was in charge of the Carmel Mission restoration.

My first experience with this cross was circa 1964 when I was a preschooler at nearby Bay School. We took a group hike to the top of the small hill it stands upon. It was quite windy that day, and I found it uncomfortable. I complained about it to a lady with long black hair who worked at the school and who taught us several songs. She was sitting on the ground with her back against the cross, her hands wrapped around her raised knees. She invited me to sit on the ground with her, saying “It's not windy down here.” I did as she suggested and sat down. She was right, it was much less windy near the ground. But the ground was uncomfortable and a little too bo...

In the fall of 1959, Mr. Toy entered this world at a place called Carmel on California's Monterey Peninsula. Nine years later his family pulled up stakes for the rain-soaked city of Salem, Oregon where he never quite fit in. When he was 12, he and his mother viewed an exhibit of photographs by a Salem newspaper photographer, which inspired him to take his first photography class. During his teenage years he gradually developed his eye for composition and his skills with light and exposure. Though he did not pursue photography as a career, he has continued to document his observations of the world on small frames of film. In 1984, Mr. Toy and his wife Heidi returned to the Monterey Peninsula where his heart belonged. In 1997, on a bit of...