setting up in stratford
The third solo exhibition of my work, A Four Year Survey at the Stratford Art Gallery (1975) was my first chance to exhibit several series in large, adjacent spaces. The installation required a second pair of hands so friend and artist Doug Kirton, a NSCAD University student at the time, agreed to be that second pair of hands.
My earlier Pie in the Sky experience prompted me to document behind-the-scene activity. At the time however, I had no reason to anticipate a use for such documentation until recently I discovered an envelope stuffed with contact sheets - no negatives, just contact sheets - and decided to incorporate the images into this website.
These small images serve to record a number of works for which no other record exists. Unfortunately, my awareness of the importance of visual documentation was accompanied by the lack of a comprehensive written record. The card-catalogue I started in 1969 that was accompanied by colour transparencies gave way to a rudimentary computer database. This digital documentation phase began around 1982 with the promise of greater efficiency for sorting and printing records. However, efficiency disappeared when digital compatibility became an issue. I switched platforms effectively trashing the existing data base. (This had never been a problem when new file cards were needed). My Radio Shack TRS 80 served me well for about five years but the transition to a Mac Classic proved to be the kiss of death to the original data base. In a small way, this page is an attempt at recovering this one event: the result of sifting and organizing numerous storage devices: slide sheets, envelopes, cds, Zip and floppy discs.
Here, the only two negatives that were printed 8"x10" and kept safe in one of those brown envelopes.
When I began to layout this page, I thought that no more black and white documentation of Stratford existed. Then, another contact sheet emerged from yet another envelope providing a record of the finished exhibition.
