This year, I have been in Canada 54 years. It is difficult to define what I need to do but I have to be more active, more involved in positive social change…….The state of Trumpism gnaws at me.
A few years ago, during March 2017, about 40 of my photographs (1967 – 1974) of Toronto’s Baldwin St. were exhibited at the Toronto Arts & Letters Club. I recently spoke at the Club about my experience as an immigrant in 1967 with a draft dodger avoiding the Vietnam War.
In Feb. of that same year, I was fortunate enough to have exhibited photographs at Unlovable Gallery that John Phillips (my ex-husband and late husband) and I took of the American Civil Rights Movement. Last year, I gave a slide presentation at the Women’s Art Association on Canadian women photographers who worked between 1865 -1915. Three projects – war resisters, civil rights, and feminism.
My son, Bennett Jones Phillips, and his partner, Lisa Pereira are in the process of creating a record store on Baldwin St. and I am going to have an exhibition space- provided the current Covid epidemic is managed, controlled and finally defeated. (I had a gallery in the past on Baldwin). Here is a chance to be more active and socially involved. My plan includes an expanded “coming to Canada” exhibit with blow ups of my and John’s photos and some pages of John’s FBI file and underground papers. It looks like the space will be a shipping container. The opening event will likely include having a tent in the former Silverstein Bakery parking lot and having music, poetry, and a 60’s feel with Baldwin Street history – Irish, Jewish, Chinese, and American immigration being part of the opening focus.
There are lots of possibilities. I am very open to ideas and involvement of other people. So what do you think? Cheers, Laura Jones.