October 1974: Location / Dislocation
NSCAD feels like a new art college. Even though it has a long history- all the ideas feels new. A number of the students have came from away- because of the myth and the hype that has built up around the school. Students arrived from across Canada and the States because of the hype.
It was the famous twin oxen postcard advertisment that drew me here. I was working in the UVIC library having pretty much completed an undergraduate degree in English, reading modern American poetry, and I wanted to go to art school. I had a studio with a darkroom and was doing photography and silk screen prints. I saw the articles in Art News and Artscanada and was curious. Here was the most contemporary art school in the country in Halifax, where I was born! I am 23. I quit my job, packed my things and took the train across Canada arriving late August 1974.
Somehow Garry Kennedy knew that in order to make the place vital, people had to come from away- there wasn’t enough of a urban infrastructure in Halifax to sustain a contemporary art scene. NSCAD had to make its own, they had to import one. Garry started with the visiting artist programme. $50,000/ year budget in 1974, and what an amazing list of artists. Garry Kennedy was the facilitator, Gerry Ferguson was the intellectual, David Askevold was the innovator and Pat Kelly was the materialist. New York City is only an hour away from Halifax by air.