why a compulsion to document?
Having just documented what I expected would be my final solo exhibition, I found myself thinking about the first time I photographed my work. It was May 1965 on the roof of Beechfield House, the men’s residence at Corsham (Bath Academy of Art). Why the roof? Because that was where the light was.
Up until that time the college’s educational dictum - You are still learning. It’s all about process. It's too soon get precious about product - meant that everything was an exercise en route to a time when something may be produced that would be worth keeping. For would-be artists, it was pretty effective ego-suppression. But I accepted this philosophy then and I still do now. Student progress is better served when preciousness about the work is not an overarching principle. But, in 1965, I photographed the half dozen or so paintings that would be part of my final assessment exhibition. The time felt right to record the ‘moment’ and I knew that none of those paintings would accompany me when I left Corsham. Therefore, I needed a visual record and 35mm slides were the best medium.
Once away from college and no longer making paintings that were mere exercises, I began to keep detailed records in the form of slides and file cards. The model for this came when I was assigned to work with Tony Urquhart on his retrospective exhibition. Tony kept a complete record of each work, its vital statistics, where it had been exhibited and who owned it.
In 1982, my file cards gave way to a rudimentary computer database. But slides were still required as the computer was low-resolution, black and white. The digital database had one advantage over file cards in that fields could be sorted and lists printed. I recall being impressed by the fact that it would only take fifteen minutes to analyze and sort a few dozen records. However, any perceived efficiency disappeared when digital compatibility became the issue. I switched platforms which effectively trashed the existing database. (This was never a problem when new file cards were required). My Radio Shack TRS 80 had served me well for about five years but the transition to a Mac Classic proved to be the kiss of death to my first database.
Early on in my record keeping, I also discovered the advantage of taking multiple slides of each painting rather than relying on having copies made. It turned out that multiple originals were cheaper and the colour quality was more reliable. Up on the roof in 1965, I had thought that one shot of each piece was sufficient. But when submitting slides for exhibition and grant applications, I recognized the value of having a stock of as many as six originals.
Years on and several Macs later, the opportunity to digitize and store images on the computer opened up significant possibilities. I was able to stop moving boxes of duplicate slides from one home to the next. A small number had moved with me from England to Canada; a larger number from London, Ontario to North Bay, and more boxes than I care to think from North Bay to Nova Scotia: the solution, digitizing each slide and storing the images on discs.
Finally and hand in hand with the magic of Photoshop that restores faded colour, a website provided relief from disc storage together with the means to control viewing. However, one problem that I discovered was that the 1990 scanning advice did not serve me well in 2013. The early scans were low resolution in keeping with the capability, storage and delivery systems at the time. My first computer had just 16k of RAM which I upgraded at great cost to 48k. The Mac Classic was not much better and, while the bulk of the scanning did come much later, the computer I had at the time would not have handled a MB let alone a KB file. As a result, most of the early records on this website are, by today’s standards, relatively poor quality. That said, revisiting, editing, upgrading and organizing images previously stored as slide sheets, contact sheets, on ZIP and floppy discs has allowed me to assemble a comprehensive and representative archive of fifty plus years of activity.
Note: since writing this page, I have accepted the opportunity of another solo exhibition in 2021 at the Art Lab in Parrsboro.
Up until that time the college’s educational dictum - You are still learning. It’s all about process. It's too soon get precious about product - meant that everything was an exercise en route to a time when something may be produced that would be worth keeping. For would-be artists, it was pretty effective ego-suppression. But I accepted this philosophy then and I still do now. Student progress is better served when preciousness about the work is not an overarching principle. But, in 1965, I photographed the half dozen or so paintings that would be part of my final assessment exhibition. The time felt right to record the ‘moment’ and I knew that none of those paintings would accompany me when I left Corsham. Therefore, I needed a visual record and 35mm slides were the best medium.
Once away from college and no longer making paintings that were mere exercises, I began to keep detailed records in the form of slides and file cards. The model for this came when I was assigned to work with Tony Urquhart on his retrospective exhibition. Tony kept a complete record of each work, its vital statistics, where it had been exhibited and who owned it.
In 1982, my file cards gave way to a rudimentary computer database. But slides were still required as the computer was low-resolution, black and white. The digital database had one advantage over file cards in that fields could be sorted and lists printed. I recall being impressed by the fact that it would only take fifteen minutes to analyze and sort a few dozen records. However, any perceived efficiency disappeared when digital compatibility became the issue. I switched platforms which effectively trashed the existing database. (This was never a problem when new file cards were required). My Radio Shack TRS 80 had served me well for about five years but the transition to a Mac Classic proved to be the kiss of death to my first database.
Early on in my record keeping, I also discovered the advantage of taking multiple slides of each painting rather than relying on having copies made. It turned out that multiple originals were cheaper and the colour quality was more reliable. Up on the roof in 1965, I had thought that one shot of each piece was sufficient. But when submitting slides for exhibition and grant applications, I recognized the value of having a stock of as many as six originals.
Years on and several Macs later, the opportunity to digitize and store images on the computer opened up significant possibilities. I was able to stop moving boxes of duplicate slides from one home to the next. A small number had moved with me from England to Canada; a larger number from London, Ontario to North Bay, and more boxes than I care to think from North Bay to Nova Scotia: the solution, digitizing each slide and storing the images on discs.
Finally and hand in hand with the magic of Photoshop that restores faded colour, a website provided relief from disc storage together with the means to control viewing. However, one problem that I discovered was that the 1990 scanning advice did not serve me well in 2013. The early scans were low resolution in keeping with the capability, storage and delivery systems at the time. My first computer had just 16k of RAM which I upgraded at great cost to 48k. The Mac Classic was not much better and, while the bulk of the scanning did come much later, the computer I had at the time would not have handled a MB let alone a KB file. As a result, most of the early records on this website are, by today’s standards, relatively poor quality. That said, revisiting, editing, upgrading and organizing images previously stored as slide sheets, contact sheets, on ZIP and floppy discs has allowed me to assemble a comprehensive and representative archive of fifty plus years of activity.
Note: since writing this page, I have accepted the opportunity of another solo exhibition in 2021 at the Art Lab in Parrsboro.
February 2020