Got a email note from the Art Gallery of St. Albert (AGSA) yesterday. The gallery curator wants to see and talk over the art work that will be shown, we will meet up sometimes in May/June. The email was about setting up a studio visit. I will need to do the meeting in either my darkroom (congested) or maybe at mom and dads home (nicer house more room). Maybe we could do both places, not sure yet. I will be showing 7 or 8 matted and newly made 20x24 photographs plus a bunch of 16x20 pictures from past exhibits. The Larry Louie Gallery (7 or 8 photos) and the Akokiniskway Gallery (8 photos) exhibition prints of the "My Fathers Last Days". The older photographs are all stored at moms home, some framed, some not.
Dad Photos Shown In Rosebud Alberta, Akokiniskway Gallery Walk
The exciting news is that I MIGHT be doing an artist talk for this coming AGSA show (opening night is August 3, 2017). Jenny the curator is not sure of the available budget for talks as of yet but if there is enough money (artist talks at the gallery are paid) we are going to do a "Healing Process" talk for the exhibition. I can speak of dad, our relationship about the making of the photographs and how that everything developed and proceeded. How the creative process helped me cope somewhat with the dying and loss of my/our father. How it might have helped dad in a way also. It gave him a final voice, and it gave us a last shared time together before he left this world forever. It also created work that allowed, helped us to continue to be together till the very end. I visited and photographed almost every day of that last 13 months and was alone taking pictures with my father when he died.
This is the 3rd exhibition and the 2nd time after his death that dads photos will be shown. A single photograph was also shown at the Kaasa Gallery in the Jubilee auditorium in 2015.
Think I will be tearing up and crying a bit if it happens, not sure, a very emotional subject for me. Even now as I write this I do tear up a bit. Dad has been gone now for just over 2 years and I still think about and miss him all the time. I even say out loud to myself many days "I miss my father." A man I met online wrote me that the pain and loss never goes away. He said that his dad died 14 years earlier and he still felt it. I think it will be the same with me. It will be a loss that I will feel the rest of my life. The photo series "My Fathers Last Days" (Healing Process) help thou, they give me an outlet. They allow me to both remember and heal (might include that last thought in the talk).
I hope I get the chance to do this artist talk. Not sure if I need to make up a PowerPoint presentation or if it will just be me in the gallery talking in front of the pictures. Will have to see what happens, see if the other folks in this group show are speaking as well. It is funny how things change, how life experience makes you braver. Before when I had never done artist talks I was always nervous, now that I have done minor and major version talks it seems all so much easier. Now I look forward to these speaking opportunities, with gratitude and happy anticipation.
Maybe I can later give the money I earn from the talk to help the children in the dump (pay for school fees?). Dad always worried about kids and their lives, I think he would like to help them. It some how seems right, I speak of dad, our relationship and the artistic healing creative process in Canada then later donate the money to help refugee (garbage dump living) children in Thailand. Yes, I think that is the way to go, it will be what I do.
If this all goes ahead as I hope, I will be posting more details later here on the blog.
Dad Photos Shown In Rosebud Alberta, Akokiniskway Gallery Walk
The exciting news is that I MIGHT be doing an artist talk for this coming AGSA show (opening night is August 3, 2017). Jenny the curator is not sure of the available budget for talks as of yet but if there is enough money (artist talks at the gallery are paid) we are going to do a "Healing Process" talk for the exhibition. I can speak of dad, our relationship about the making of the photographs and how that everything developed and proceeded. How the creative process helped me cope somewhat with the dying and loss of my/our father. How it might have helped dad in a way also. It gave him a final voice, and it gave us a last shared time together before he left this world forever. It also created work that allowed, helped us to continue to be together till the very end. I visited and photographed almost every day of that last 13 months and was alone taking pictures with my father when he died.
This is the 3rd exhibition and the 2nd time after his death that dads photos will be shown. A single photograph was also shown at the Kaasa Gallery in the Jubilee auditorium in 2015.
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| Dad "Fear" (stripped light) photo hanging at the Kaasa Gallery as part of Alberta Open 2015 |
I hope I get the chance to do this artist talk. Not sure if I need to make up a PowerPoint presentation or if it will just be me in the gallery talking in front of the pictures. Will have to see what happens, see if the other folks in this group show are speaking as well. It is funny how things change, how life experience makes you braver. Before when I had never done artist talks I was always nervous, now that I have done minor and major version talks it seems all so much easier. Now I look forward to these speaking opportunities, with gratitude and happy anticipation.
Maybe I can later give the money I earn from the talk to help the children in the dump (pay for school fees?). Dad always worried about kids and their lives, I think he would like to help them. It some how seems right, I speak of dad, our relationship and the artistic healing creative process in Canada then later donate the money to help refugee (garbage dump living) children in Thailand. Yes, I think that is the way to go, it will be what I do.
If this all goes ahead as I hope, I will be posting more details later here on the blog.
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| Mother and her young son outside of their dump shack, December 2015 Mae Sot Thailand |
