As of this writing, it’s clear to say I have not been keeping this journal up-to-date with my hikes in the West Bloomfield Nature Preserve. It all got started just over a year ago and since I’ve probably averaged maybe a little more than once a month, but at least one month I was going every week. This means I have been able to accumulate photographs covering all seasons, all weather conditions.
I originally was offered the opportunity to put on an exhibition as part of the Beaumont Hospital’s Arts for the Spirit Program back in December/January, but I was getting ready to travel and didn’t have the time to figure out which prints and issues like framing, and at that time didn’t have all seasons covered, so I had to let it go. It was pretty much the same story when I returned from my travels; they refresh the exhibits each quarter and I wasn’t going to have time to get everything organized. Thanks to the perseverance of the curator, Julie-Ann Magdowski, I now have 11 prints on the walls at the Beaumont Hospital in Grosse Pointe. I have tried to organize it to give the sense of a walk in the woods – this is not quite as clear in its eventual location as it was in the one it was originally designed for, but still works I trust.
The middle-sized prints are essentially looking up, while the smallest prints are looking down.
Gearing up for any sort of exhibition, especially one of photographs, can consume a lot of resources. For most of the smaller prints, I used frames I already had. For the larger prints, I investigated many methods for hanging without glass and/or mat and/or frames, all the while looking to ensure some protection for the print from the effects of UV light and passers-by. I might write more about the options I looked at, and indeed may yet try some of them, but again time constraints happily drove me to the simplest solution, using a protective spray and bamboo poster-hangers from Ikea, which serves very well.
All but one of the prints (which is included here at the top of this post, and is the opening print in the exhibition) are in this gallery.
This image shows how the exhibition plan came together:
