0:05

I would like to start by acknowledging that we are here on the traditional territories of the Erie neutral here on

0:11

wendat hodnessone and mississaugas this land is covered by the dish with one spoon wampum belt Covenant which was an

0:17

agreement between the hodnishoni and anishinabec to share and care for the resources around the Great Lakes We

0:23

further acknowledge that this land is covered by the Between the Lakes purchase 1792 between the crown and the

0:29

mississaugas at the Credit First Nation we exist as an institution recognize

0:34

that a land acknowledgment is only one tiny step in the reconciliation process especially for Colonial spaces such as

0:41

Galleries and museums there is much work to be done to better represent the voices and stories of this land that we

0:47

occupy as settlers and that includes ensuring that the artworks that hang on the gallery’s walls accurately represent

0:53

the culturally diverse community that we as a galley are so proud to be a part of so now I’ll pass it over to our director

1:00

of exhibitions and collections Toby Bruce who will introduce Bryson Alexis and kick off the conversation thank you

1:08

thanks Alexandra um so this is we we’ve conceived of this to

1:15

be a very informal evening um in fact I didn’t even think I was

1:20

going to be sitting him here on the stage with them until about 10 minutes ago but there are a few things maybe a few

1:27

housekeeping notes um first of all thank you all for coming we have about

1:33

20 people online and so this is a hybrid event we have

1:39

those of you here with us in in body and then we have those online and what that means is uh we we want to we conceive of

1:47

this to be a sort of conversation asking lots of questions and answering questions but it means that if you do if

1:53

you’d like to contribute something we unfortunately need to put a mic in your hands so that everyone at home can hear

1:59

you so we hope that you’re you’re comfortable with that and it’s we have the three mics so as we go along and you

2:05

put your hand up we’ll make sure we get a mic into your hand before we before I introduce Alexis and

2:12

Bryce I just want to give a little bit of a context into how this exhibition came about and also

2:18

a shout out to a couple of very important people who are in the room um about I’m going to say around 2015.

2:27

um stephanievay who was then the director of the Hamilton Arts Council uh brought together a number of people in

2:34

the community based on a suggestion from the visual arts subcommittee of HACC regarding this issue of

2:41

a number of artists senior artists in Hamilton who were passing who were dying and

2:47

their stories weren’t being captured and there was a real concern that there was a generation of artists that we were losing and so we had an event at the uh

2:56

Library and it was a great Gathering of artists and people from organizations

3:02

and from that the decision was made that we wanted to do something we didn’t know

3:07

what it was going to look like we didn’t know how we were going to do it but that the will was there and so Steph took

3:13

that away and I just wanted Steph if you can put your hand up stephanievay is right here um [Music]

3:19

Steph together with Jennifer K who uh came on board as part of the committee

3:24

they wrote a grant and were successful in very successful in receiving

3:31

significant funds from trillium’s seed Grant to produce a website and that

3:36

website looked at Hamilton artists from 1950 to 2000 it’s called building cultural legacies it’s online it’s

3:43

organic it is being added to and it is housed by the Hamilton Arts Council the grant was written through them and they

3:49

are sort of the the central organization and I want to acknowledge David Holden

3:54

who can also put up his hand who is here from hack now so we continue to work with them but they are the keepers of

4:03

this amazing asset and resource when the labs when the website went live

4:09

in um 2019 I think

4:15

um one of the components of the grant was to put together a small exhibition and so in this in the small Gallery at

4:21

the back here just as you were coming in to your right the young Gallery um Alexis Moline through this grant was

4:29

hired to organize an exhibition so she had to take 50 years and make an

4:35

exhibition of that and if you think this was if you think the larger exhibition was a challenge

4:42

imagine trying to do that with you know a comparatively small space

4:47

when we had the opening for that exhibition um the place was jammed and as it should

4:53

be and it became really clear to us that we needed to do a much bigger

5:00

celebration of this half decade of art production in Hamilton because it was so formative to the artistic landscape here

5:09

and and but I’m not going to get into building or into um climbing the cold white Peaks

5:15

because that was the the precursor to the BCL project we’ll talk about that later or during the course of the

5:21

conversation I’m sure um and so we decided we wanted to do this much bigger project Alexis was an

5:27

obvious um uh candidate to she had already done a significant amount of work with these

5:32

artists and then we thought well we’d also like to have someone who is a more senior

5:38

established artist within the community and uh are sort of an easy choice we

5:45

approached Bryce and he very graciously agreed to come on board

5:50

and the you know the the culmination of all of this is the bigger picture exhibition so

5:56

I’m going to now formally introduce them and then really the uh the format for tonight is there I’m going to start off

6:04

kick off with a question and then they’re going to just release they’re going to sort of interview each other and I’ll jump in and if they’re saying

6:11

something that you want to hear more about this isn’t a talk and then a question period if there’s something you want to add or you know would like them

6:18

to elaborate on please just put up your hand just like Elementary School and uh we’ll bring you a mic so we can have so

6:25

this can be a very organic evening okay are there any questions so far

6:31

nope we’re good okay great okay also washrooms I should say are just through

6:36

the door to the left and feel free to um you know if you want to get up and get a drink during the course of the the

6:43

conversation or go to the washroom or if you need fresh air please do so

6:48

okay Alexis Moline is an independent curator Arts professional and writer who has worked in Vancouver Toronto and Hamilton

6:54

she received her master of Museum studies in collaboration with sexual

7:00

diversity studies from the University of Toronto She was recently the curator of the building cultural legacies project which

7:07

I just spoke about was that your first curatorial into the mic

7:13

yes proper yes great um which led to the subject uh project

7:19

that we’re talking about tonight she’s worked extensively within the Hamilton Arts Community supporting hundreds of artists through her research and

7:25

curation Bryce was born and educated in Hamilton Ontario

7:30

oh your bio actually stipulates that Ontario I guess I didn’t need to actually say that did I we’re here

7:37

although there could be people from Outer Province you’re in Ontario a visual artist and curator and proprietor

7:42

of the Yumi Gallery since 2003 he was also the founding member and first administrator of the Hamilton

7:48

artist sink he has held curatorial positions at the Burlington arts center right here at the art gallery of

7:54

Hamilton the glenhurst art gallery of Brandt and the Art Gallery at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Center in

7:59

Toronto in addition he has served as the executive director of the National Association of Japanese Canadians

8:05

Toronto chapter and as the chair of the National Association of Japanese Canadians naajc endowment fund over the

8:13

years he has also been a national executive member of the najc visual arts

8:19

crafts design officer at the Ontario Arts Council co-chair of the board of directors the

8:25

workers Arts and Heritage Center and a governing council member for the Hamilton Center for civic inclusion

8:32

what I’m going to add because Bryce is too humble to do so Bryce was awarded the 2021 Governor General’s award for

8:40

outstanding contribution in the Arts in the announcement it noted quote his contribution to the vibrancy of

8:45

Hamilton’s art scene is notable in his practice he builds Bridges between artists and communities by supporting

8:50

and amplifying their work and Bryce’s quote in in the same context

8:56

was a simple but very crucial part of doing the work that we do is getting to know one another community building and

9:03

Community Development is an important aspect of everything I do I have a real empathy for artists

9:08

because I know what it’s like to create work and to do it in isolation and without a lot of public response it’s

9:15

important to help them please join me in join in welcoming both Bryce and Alexis

9:21

thank you Okay so

9:27

where do we start I know I’m going to ask a question I’m going to ask a question and that question is when

9:35

um you both agreed to do this project what was your

9:41

biggest hope for the project and your biggest concern

9:51

um I guess my Hope was to involve as many of my friends as possible

9:59

because uh it’s it’s really a rare rare opportunity for

10:05

um well the the the the art gallery created to invite

10:15

um many Regional artists into the building

10:21

um and it’s something that I’ve always thought was important

10:28

um do you want me to go on I can sort of yeah I was talking to

10:35

um Sheila Greenspan who used to be the education head here years ago and she

10:44

subsequently went to the ago and was the education officer there for a while but

10:51

just uh just before the show opened I

10:56

learned that she had some more some Works in her collection at home by people like Diane zizak and

11:04

um who’s the other person Arturo Nagle Arturo Nagel thank you

11:10

and so I visited her and had an

11:15

opportunity to talk to her and and she she shared some of her ideas about the

11:23

importance of collecting for a municipal gallery

11:28

and one of them was that that she thought that not only

11:34

collecting but exhibiting the work of of course contemporary artists from everywhere but that it was really

11:42

important to collect and exhibit The Works um that would that would be seen by the

11:49

public she said 200 years from now and uh I I think that’s a really

11:56

important emphasis that that the current

12:01

gallery start collecting with that kind of vision in mind

12:09

okay I got off on a tangent there but that’s one gone

12:15

um yeah Alexis so I guess biggest fear for the project

12:21

was just how we would try to manage such a vast and diverse period of history

12:28

with all how we were going to

12:33

first of all reach out or to select and curate those artists and I was so happy

12:39

when we just came up with a brilliant idea of the open call um instead of kind of doing a more

12:45

selective process because that is so in the spirit of everything I learned about this generation and this how the city

12:53

works with artists in in general so that seemed like a brilliant solution so that

12:59

fear subsided the minute we came up with that and got the green light to go ahead with the open call and my biggest Hope

13:06

was to kind of raise awareness for younger generations and the generations that came past the year 2000 to

13:15

um kind of start building that awareness and community

13:22

that goes through the generations and Through the Ages because I know when I was a student I knew next to little next

13:30

to nothing about the Arts in Hamilton so now I think with the website and with

13:36

this exhibit I think it has fulfilled that hope in like becoming such a great resource for

13:42

different generations to learn about so what did you learn about us Alexis I

13:48

can’t say that publicly yeah I signed some documents

13:54

no I learned every I was so happy with everything I learned like the spirit of

13:59

activism and collectivism like that’s so prominent in this and feels so unique to

14:05

this city like that people were just like the the quote that Toby pulled from you Bryce um about uplifting each other

14:12

and how the Arts were very run by the people here like since it’s the city’s

14:18

Inception really like to getting back even to the women’s Art Association in the 1800s like the people were the

14:25

drivers of the art scene and um like with you at the ink if there was

14:30

not a space for artists to go you just made one so that was a great thing to

14:36

learn um yeah I think that’s really what

14:42

happened in this time period 1950 to 2000 is that there um there were a lot

14:49

of artists who came together to form collectives and organ and not

14:54

established organizations that are pretty solid even

14:59

to to um to today and I mentioned them before but it’s

15:05

worth listing them Dundas Valley School of Art Carnegie Gallery the Hamilton

15:12

region Arts Council um whack whack was a right at the end of

15:18

that yeah workers Arts and Heritage Center the ink who else

15:27

photo Union yeah [Music]

15:34

glenhurst I don’t know

15:40

I don’t really carefully not Hamilton

15:45

yeah so so there was it was an opportunity for uh for people to be

15:50

involved with other artists and undertake projects and um

15:57

um when we did the um the now show

16:03

at the Hamilton Public Library well Terry’s here she’s she was the chair of

16:09

that committee you want to tell us a little bit about how that came together

16:19

I I’m my memory is really shot so but I will give it a try Stuart McQuaid and

16:26

Bryce brought together a really comprehensive book called climbing the cold white Peaks and they arranged for

16:33

the art gallery of Hamilton to do a show of contemporary artists and I was at the

16:39

ink at the time and we decided to do a show of a historical artists and we had lots

16:49

of fun getting together Lily Monroe was the minister of

16:54

culture and we went to Lily Monroe and asked if we could use the old library

17:00

across the road and it was tricky because the tiles on the roof were

17:05

falling down and that was a bit of a nuisance but anyway we went ahead and had lots of fun and we painted it and it

17:12

made it really come alive and as in this show we put out a call and I don’t think

17:18

anybody was turned down I think we I had amazing number of pieces I can’t remember how many but it was a lot of

17:24

fun and like Alexis was saying it was a

17:30

time that many of us uh feeling sad that it’s it that it’s gone but anyway it was

17:36

really fun Bryce I’ll never forget Bryce is a wonderful person at least really

17:42

steady really wonderful guy yeah that’s why I asked her

17:49

I noticed that David had his hand up a second ago

17:55

thank you so much Bryce I wonder if you could just talk very briefly about um about your experiences with isolation

18:02

as an artist before you know what were those pivotal moments what those pivotal experiences in Hamilton where you were

18:08

brought into contact where I I guess what were the experiences in isolation that underpin the the need today to

18:17

bring artists together and to bring artists in in and sort of community build

18:22

um what was that sort of like for you oh

18:28

I don’t I don’t think I ever really felt isolated or alone here because

18:36

my friends were artists and um and you

18:41

know that’s the wonderful thing about being an artist and having a community is that

18:47

you know that um you have people with shared values

18:53

Lifestyles even and and it gives you a sense of

18:59

assurance that you’re living a life that’s worthwhile and that’s shared by

19:07

by and supported by others so I I don’t think I ever felt isolated and I’ve

19:14

always been involved in two communities

19:19

the and and they’re they they my involvement has been almost in parallel

19:25

with the Japanese Canadian community and the artists community so I never really

19:31

said called it the Arts Community I called it the arts art artists community

19:36

and um yeah we um so it’s so when we had an idea

19:43

we could sit around in a pub or whatever and decide that we want to go down to James

19:50

Street Northern look around the city to rent a space

19:55

um where we could exhibit our art and get together and talk about art and

20:01

that’s the way the Hamilton artist Inc started really and I remember while Bob remembers too

20:07

Bob Yates remembers going around Dundas looking for rentable places and

20:16

there were a number of of locations we scouted out before we finally

20:22

rented 143 James Street North which is

20:28

there’s an Asian food market there now but it’s right across the street from

20:33

the current ink and um I’ve told this story many times but

20:39

we found out that the building that we rented for I think a hundred and twenty

20:45

dollars a month was owned by Herman Levy who was a millionaire and uh

20:54

and a good friend of George Wallace the sculptor and professor at McMaster

20:59

and uh he [Music] um he he actually he came to the very first

21:06

exhibition of the of the Hamilton artist Co-op

21:12

and I think he was pretty amused because of his great interest in art he has an art

21:20

collection he had an art collection and um and his the second time that he

21:27

got involved or came down to the gallery was when we did the retrospective of

21:33

George Wallace’s work his sculpture and his Prince

21:39

um you may know that he Herman Levy ended up donating 15 million dollars to

21:46

the ROM and to McMaster Museum but nothing to the Art Gallery at Hamilton

21:54

um and uh um and he we prevailed upon him towards the

22:02

end of his life to donate the building that we were renting

22:08

um to to the Hamilton artist Inc but at that time it was too late he said

22:14

um because everybody else had hit him for all kinds of things and he couldn’t uh leave it to us William Street

22:23

there’s a list of all the exhibitors

22:29

and there’s so much overlap with this exhibition it’s great to see the list of names yeah but they’re still doing their

22:37

work yeah that’s cool and that this is the

22:44

Eaton Center uh where the first picture group picture of artists took place and

22:51

you can recognize like that’s Torah right in the foreground there Torah lucasic Foss Taurus here is he here yeah

22:57

he just oh and his mother right yeah right behind you yeah and yeah the this picture is pretty

23:06

clear so you can recognize a lot of people I think if you know them

23:12

um see and this is the 2001

23:19

that we organized after that first one

23:25

the first one we called One Fine Day in Hammer town and it was

23:31

based on a film from from

23:37

I think they they gathered a bunch of jazz musicians in them in Harlem or the

23:43

Bronx and they called it One Fine Day in Harlem and so we somebody had seen that that

23:52

movie and decided to call it call this one One Fine Day in Hammer

23:58

town and then it became the big picture

24:07

I have to go backwards now

24:17

and the bigger pictures were organized were they artist driven were they were you working with the city

24:23

no we had a we formed a committee called the big picture committee that that did

24:28

a lot of art promotional projects like we draped the

24:36

the monument statues and sculptures downtown um for

24:42

a day without art and did things like that

24:49

lobbied the politicians the local counselors

24:55

I guess that’s it that’s it for the pictures right or was there was I I thought there were

25:00

pictures from here weren’t there some slide images of um

25:08

yeah there are this installation yep

25:18

I don’t see any documentation of the Go show at the GO station or the old train

25:24

station I couldn’t find any really well it’s yeah

25:29

um Judy might Judy Burgess might have some

25:36

yeah okay so you wanna Alexis you want to talk about Donna and

25:42

always um so besides the

25:49

kind of going back to this question of how we how we began to start organizing and

25:56

curating the show um we do have of course the main big room of the salon style hang but

26:03

everything was still part of the of the open call including these three more thematic

26:11

rooms so this first room focuses on women’s art and

26:16

um during that time period so these amazing penis paintings are by artist

26:22

Donna ibing and she had issues back in the 70s when she

26:28

first exhibited male nudes um and faced a lot of censorship and Bryce

26:35

nicknamed her dirty Donna at the time um so she had quite a reputation to to

26:43

live up to because of price there so because she was noticing she was getting such censorship from galleries

26:50

who would put her Works maybe in the near the back like put kind of some

26:55

disclaimer ahead or just she had one story of there was one show I don’t remember where where

27:02

um it was out of town and when she went to go she sent in her art it was accepted and when she traveled there a

27:09

couple weeks after it opened that they didn’t actually end up putting her work up and they just said oh we didn’t have

27:16

room or we forgot or something like that dude yeah

27:23

Simcoe oh simcos um yeah so so that’s another instance of

27:28

censorship so in response to all that she said um it seems I’m only getting censored

27:33

when the penis is involved so I’m going to paint the penis and that she did in all of these

27:39

um hilarious satirical ways so what was interesting even now there was kind of

27:45

the question of not so much censorship but how are we going to present this or does it need

27:50

explanation does it need context um in ways that other artworks didn’t and there’s a lot of female nudes of

27:56

course in the show that um we didn’t even think to question so we do have a little

28:02

um kind of paragraph explainer there to give a bit of context um but it’s just interesting that even

28:08

you know 50 years later it’s still a bit of a question mark in people’s

28:14

minds when her work comes up so um so that’s the other thematic room we

28:20

have is kind of about art and the environment um so Bryce do you do you want to talk

28:26

about that oh this is Robert Bateman of course um how many of abatements do you have in

28:32

your collection this is the big one we have a lot of

28:37

well I’d say we probably have about eight or nine really early works

28:43

from the 60s whereas this is an 80s mid 80s I think work yeah

28:50

well I think everybody knows Robert Bateman and his paintings and his notorious reproductions

28:57

they were going to uh they were going to um

29:03

have a a gallery a Robert Bateman Gallery in Burlington right that never came

29:11

about but he certainly influenced a lot of

29:18

a lot of young male painters at that time in the 80s

29:24

who who were painting Wildlife scenes

29:35

this is Kathy Gibbon she um

29:40

how many of these paintings did she do of the it’s the the tire it’s a tire

29:47

fire the Hagersville tire fire she did a

29:55

whole series of paintings based on that they’re really beautiful and the Bateman in contrast with Kathy

30:02

Gibbons here um so there was this really interesting like theme in those decades where there

30:09

was a lot of environmental activist type work like this depicting the environmental disaster tire fire but

30:15

also a lot of like love for the nature of just like landscape and Wildlife and

30:20

stuff like that so which again I think is very unique to Hamilton because we have all this industry and mismanagement

30:26

and environmental um not goodness and then as well this vast

30:33

Beauty with you know Dundas Valley and Coots paradise and everything so that was a really cool contrast in that room

30:41

has Kathy had a exhibition here Kathy

30:46

like solo exhibition early in earlier decades I believe but

30:52

not in the last 20 years oh

30:59

okay this is um if you’ve seen the show this is Bob yates’s painting of the Burlington Bay

31:06

called Mikasa which is the indigenous name and on the right

31:14

are the fiery steel works and on the left

31:21

is bucolic Burlington I guess but the interesting part is beneath the

31:30

surface of the water where there’s a lot of um

31:36

almost grotesque things happening

31:42

oh there it is at the end that’s can we go sorry can you go back to the images

31:48

of the salon one of the things that I thought was that really came to the fore

31:53

in this space and I’d just love to hear your thoughts on it were the generational ago going back to this

31:59

where there were so you know there’s Judy major there’s Don Carr there’s

32:04

um uh Lauren Taves uh and then there is also all of those a generation of

32:11

artists who studied with them as well and standing in that room and sort of taking

32:18

in all works at the same time there’s some really you know I think it was

32:24

um it was an artist whose work whose name I had heard

32:30

I’m going to forget who it was at any rate but I had never actually seen their practice and then there was a work that

32:36

was brought in and as soon as I saw the work I realized ah okay now I see how a

32:41

generation of artists you know we’re looking to some key sort of players in the community and the kind

32:48

of resonance that they have decades later

32:54

I don’t know if you wanted to say anything about that or not um yeah well certainly the students or

33:04

the artists who attended McMaster were were influenced by their instructors

33:10

especially later on with graham Todd and

33:15

um Judy major I guess and there were cohorts especially in the

33:24

80s that um that were really exceptional

33:30

[Music] people like Paula repel and Judy Burgess

33:35

and Lisa warla John kinsella I’m I’m just I’m naming

33:43

them in pairs because they actually became couples and married and had kids

33:48

and have settled in Hamilton now so that they were exceptional in that

33:54

way too um who else

33:59

Paul and Fiona Paul svenage um

34:05

oh geez oh Janice colvar and

34:11

Paul M Wright but they were all around that time

34:18

Ralph katarini uh

34:24

they they graduated and the the really neat thing was that

34:30

that they were the students that came off campus and got involved at in the

34:35

Hamilton artist Inc and and uh

34:40

became board members eventually but they didn’t

34:46

they weren’t um confined to the camp to the campus as

34:54

so many cohorts are they don’t seem to come out

34:59

and and get involved in the community but but those guys really did

35:11

how’s everyone doing I’m just looking at the time it is 20 after eight

35:18

um are there any questions from home from our from our our uh our visitors online

35:25

attendance online I can’t hear what he said

35:32

Tyler’s gonna ask and but as of right now there aren’t any questions

35:39

viewers online if you have any questions for the curators please put them in the chat

35:47

are there any more questions or is there anything else that you want to ask each other

35:55

I just uh oh I don’t know I no just one asked one thing that came to my mind

36:02

just now as an example of my

36:07

um regard for the community of artists is is when I was working at the Burlington

36:13

Cultural Center as the curator I was for I was hired by Ted piacek and I can’t

36:21

remember the late 80s and um I was there for six years

36:28

and um Ted left to come here I think and the new

36:36

director came in and fired me so

36:45

um but what happened as a result of that I’m I’m so um heartened by the response

36:53

of the community of artists because they really supported me you know there was a

36:59

real um battle in the newspaper and um

37:04

there were articles about me articles quoting the president of the Burlington

37:10

Cultural Center [Music] justifying my firing and they used that

37:18

word fire you know firing they didn’t just let me go

37:23

I had a lawyer and and you know so this went on for a while

37:30

um but there were artists who spoke up on my behalf like Paul repel in the paper

37:37

and Bob Yates and mind you it didn’t accomplish anything

37:43

other than my Moving on but um but they they organized it was actually

37:53

vijayan Gordon Pat kozwick and Donna I being

37:59

organized an evening for me at the Hamilton artist

38:05

Inc which was on Jake James Street further down the

38:11

street where the the Wild Orchid is now

38:16

that was that was one of the locations that the ink um

38:22

uh had at that time but it was you know it was uh

38:28

it was an evening where people got up and and spoke they spoke at length

38:35

we drank a lot of beer and um and I said at the end it was like being

38:41

at my own funeral you know because everybody was talking about about me but

38:49

I but that was such a um

38:54

I don’t know it was just a reassuring glad event

39:00

um despite the occasion and I yeah I’m I I’m really grateful for

39:07

that on that note I’d like to add that John kinsella says thanks for all that you do

39:13

and all that you have done in the community Bryce

39:18

and I think it’s safe to say that this exhibition really could not have been

39:23

would not be what it is uh without your complete involvement one of the things

39:30

that uh neither Bryce nor Alexis have talked about really is the amount of

39:36

um I call it sort of tree shaking that they did we put the call out it was a really short call it was a really short

39:43

run we asked a lot of artists to find images of work from decades ago and get

39:49

them to us um and between Alexis they really I mean they contacted

39:55

everyone that they knew and sent personal emails um and followed up and this was months

40:02

and months of work and the exhibition is what it is because of those

40:07

relationships um and the respect I think that everyone holds uh uh specifically for for Bryce

40:15

in this context and the longevity with which he has really helped not just

40:21

shape but he’s I think of him he doesn’t like this but I call him the eminolsky of the art community because he’s he has

40:28

been here actively at the center for decades

40:34

um and uh it’s pretty extraordinary to have you as active as you are continuing

40:40

to be at the Forefront and at the center after

40:46

five Decades of work in this community so on behalf of everyone here I just I

40:52

want to thank both Bryce and Alexis not only for the work that they have done in this exhibition I think it really it

41:00

certainly exceeded all expectations I think I think we gave them an impossible task almost to deal with five Decades of

41:08

artists working in this community as it exploded and to do that in an inclusive

41:13

and thoughtful ways is really quite extraordinary and

41:19

we have heard nothing but um Bravos and accolades for this project

41:25

the artists you can’t please everyone all the time but and maybe they’re just not telling me but the artists seem to

41:31

be happy um and the public is is really really uh wowed by this they they feel a great

41:39

sense of um I think wonder and pride walking through this exhibition so

41:46

um on behalf of all of us here I want to thank you for coming for spending your evening with us and a very sincere

41:53

thanks to Bryce and Lexis for bringing this to fruition for us thank you

41:58

[Applause]

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