three pictures of my father

A few years ago, my father needed to design a display to honour a group of Holocaust survivors who are speakers for the Toronto Holocaust Centre. The plan was to hang a framed portrait of each speaker along with a story board about each person. The problem was there are many speakers, and there wasn't enough space.

My father had an idea - he would frame a portrait of the speaker, and then behind it, he would display another panel which would be a one page history of the person including old photos and text. the first layer of portraits would be on a picture rail where they could be slid aside to reveal the story behind the portrait.

It was a lot of work to design and built that first history wall, and the interactive display was a great success. My father then offered the same concept to other organizations. He has installed variations of the history wall at Baycrest, the YWCA and Toronto East General Hospital. He has plans for other installations.

At the YWCA, my mother Esme was given archival materials of 125 years history. From these minutes of meetings and photos she assembled the materials for the display. My parents usually work as a team.

This Saturday, I went with my father to two locations to take pictures of completed projects.

My father is 80, and he's as full of new ideas as he has always been. He's just designed a new gadget for water conservation which I can't explain in detail here, but it is small, simple, and very effective.