Saturday, June 03, 2006






Since my photo file is in alphabetical order Vancouver Alderman Harry Rankin is right next to Scottish crime writer Ian Rankin. But I have odder bedfellows that happen to be together by accident. Today I wanted to write about the pull that Mexico has with me. Rosemary, Rebecca and I are going to Morelia in August. Last year we went to Guanajuato. So I was fishing through my 1977 files and found a bonanza of photos of my trip to the Mayan ruins in Yucatán, Chiapas, Veracruz and Oaxaca. There in the files with El Caracol ( the Mayan "observatory" in Chichen Itzá) I found a Kodachrome I must have taken at about the same time of Arthur Erickson's Museum of Anthropology. The Kodachrome is in much better shape than the medium format colour negative of El Caracol. With the Arthur Erickson restrospective show at the Vancouver Art Gallery I decided that I might as well make today's posting my own mini retrospective. The portrait of Arthur (I know him well enough and I have photographed him so many times that I can call him that) in his leather jacket I took at the museum of Anthropology in 1984. I was at the museum and hour earlier and I took Polaroids of about 5 locations. He picked this one because of the angle. Here the architect does not compete with any artifacts (Bill Read's Raven) and all you see is his building. The second photo I took in 1994.

There is a Rebecca story here. We were invited to a garden party at Arthur's three years ago. While we were there Rebecca sat in a chair in Arthur's living room. It was pointed out to me that it was Arthur's favourite chair. When I introduced Arthur as Arthur to Rebecca, Rebecca said, "That cannot be. He has no hair." I knew that Rebecca thought I meant King Arthur (the only other Arthur that I know that is just plane Arthur). Arthur (Erickson) looked at me and asked, "What did she say?" Fortunately Arthur is little bit hard of hearing.