Vancouver Art Gallery - 20 July 2026

 

Gerry Schallie - 20 July 2026

This past Tuesday my Victoria friend Gerry Schallie visited me. We went to the Vancouver Art Gallery to see the American photographer Stephen Shore’s show.

I am not much of a street photographer but Shore had a few portraits that I did like. For me my rewards of the day (besides being accompanied by a friend who is a photographer) were the other salons. The VAG had the largest collection of Emily Carr ever and I particularly liked her pencil sketches. There were two other bonuses. One was a roomful of Group of Seven paintings and in a smaller room of street photograph there were three very lovely Fred Herzogs.

After our tour of the gallery we had iced coffee at Trees on Granville between West Georgia and Robson. I could not recognize the spot where the Farmer Building had been where I had had my large studio on the same floor as Rodney Graham and Neil Wedman.

I keep talking to my Rosemary in my thoughts, “Rosemary you would not recognize the city you brought us from Mexico in 1975."

I am going to put a quote here by Saint Augustine (I am going to write a later blog on him):  Memory is the present of the past.

Sadly I feel now like an alien in this city that I shared with my wife, daughters, granddaughters and many cats. I had a job as a photographer and I felt useful.

Thanks to Schallie I found myself compelled to take one photograph with my Gallaxy phone. Schallie was busy taking many.

As I was returning that evening to my Kitsilano home I notice the brilliant sunset. I hate sunset photographs but I knew I could not avoid this one. I drove down Musqueam View Street to Point Grey Road and armed with that Galaxy I took a few shots of the sunset.