Rodney Graham

While picking up in my oficina I found two strips of medium format slide film in plastic sleeves. I have no idea why I would put prints of Rodney Graham on my deck chairs and then photograph them.

The upper section represents a time when Graham came into my studio for me to take his portrait for the Globe and Mail. I told him that I had been inspired by a portrait of an intellectual in my August Sander book. He asked me to show him the book. To my amazement he signalled the very portrait!

The second section is my flagrant ripping off on the famous portrait of Igor Stravinsky by Arnold Newman. That was also for the Globe and Mail. I indicated to the art directors in Toronto not to crop the photograph as it was a private joke between Graham and yours truly.

Now looking at this scan I think of that ugly Vancouver word used so often to describe art, “installation”. When somebody invites me to see an installation I usually stay away. Now looking at this scan I can almost imagine it being in an art gallery very large.

Perhaps just might be an artist and an installation artist to boot.

Rosa 'Westerland' 14 November 2025

Since I began in the summer of 2001 I have amassed over 4000 (if not more) of my plant scans from my garden. Every time I do one I find myself amazed at its beauty and I have to quote in my mind what Borges said. For him, a first time kept being a first time.

Today was a cold grey and rainy day in which my only smile came from a 45 minute visit by Larry Campbell. Once he was gone I was back in my doldrums. Sometimes a melancholic moment produces a thought of “what if I?” After I scanned this-ever-so-lovely Rosa ‘Westerland’ which up until late summer is a brilliant orange, I printed a small version and included it with the scan (a second scan).

The whole operation reminds me of telling my grandmother that I was bored and she would suggest, "Alex, chúpate el codo." (Alex, suck your elbow). Because I was a little boy that kept me busy.

And so this operation has kept me occupied.

I first met Larry Campbell years ago when his job was working with stiffs as he was the City Coroner. He then became mayor and because we were friends he would promote my photography work including one which was a gallery showing in the concourse of the main branch of the Vancouver Public Library. He left town and became a senator. He is now back with an important job in having to see if he can begin to solve the drug and homeless problem of the Downtown Eastside.

For some years now I tell people that I am obsolete, redundant, retired and inconsequential (soon to be a fine country and western song!).

Today I found out that is not quite the case. I contacted my friend former mayor, Sam Sullivan to see if he had Campbell’s contact email. He did!  I wrote and I received an instant reply. I told him that we should meet. He suggested tomorrow. I told him he could come to my house if he was not allergic to my two cats. He quickly replied with a photograph of his cat.

I will clean up my house in the morning and get my coffee beans out. I am in heaven!

One of the happy moments I would share with Rosemary by mid-November was getting two catalogues in the mail. One was the Lee Valley Christmas Catalogue. We would see what interesting stuff we could buy for our garden. The other was the Bits and Pieces  catalogue which had all kinds of items that we would get for our granddaughters (and have fun doing it) like good jig-saw puzzles.

Now I have no use for them. They have been on my kitchen centre table for a few days and I feel sad to throw them away. By keeping them perhaps those moments I share with Rosemary would come back. They will not but still I persist.

The cold, and dark rainy days that are with us I know will become cheerier with Christmas lights. But a family Christmas is not in the works. I have yet to figure out what I will do this Christmas. I might think of that ever so British expression to “chin up”.

But I do have a fine project for the beginning of December. I am going to Mexico City (the new nomenclature is CDMX) to photograph a photographer friend called Pedro Meyer who is 90. His marbles are intact but he told me that he is blind. I asked him if I would photograph him with eyes open, closed or in profile. He answered, “Alex tienes que hacerlo en las 3 maneras.”

Left - El Greco -Toledo - Right Toledo 1985

 More Photographs below this text.

My Rosemary had an adventurous spirit for travel. In 1985 we flew with our daughters to Paris and from there to Madrid. In Madrid after going to the Prado Museum we rented a car and drove all the way to Málaga. We stopped in many cities but our favourite was Toledo that reminded me a bit of Guanajuato in the State of Guanajuato in Mexico.

Because I had received a good arts education in my Catholic boarding school in Austin, Texas in the late 1950s I told my family that I want to go to the exact spot, if that was possible where El Greco painted his view of the city. We found it and I took  7 frames with Kodak Black and White Infrared Film and 6 with Ektachrome slides.

Last week in a frenzy of obsession I scanned several of the pictures. Some were very dark others were very light. Using the LAB darkness and lightness tool (it is very elaborate) in my 22 year-old Photoshop 8, I was able to inkjet print variations that are all excellent. I am unable these days to convince my photography peers the delight in combining my negatives and slides of that past century with a modern Epson scanner. It is the best of both worlds. The inkjet prints would have no rivalry from darkroom prints.