I Wonder (2021)

I WONDER is a large scale wall-text painting which was up at Art Metropole from 2021-2023. This installation was the final realization of a project started in the bathroom of Garry's care facility before his passing.

Original project description: 

In the final months of Garry's life he lived in a care facility where he has his own room that had a large bathroom allowing space for lifts and wheelchairs. It was big and empty, making all the more obvious the scuffs, dents and scrapes from mobility aids bumping into the walls over the years. 

To help make Garry feel more at home and to give us a project, I proposed making a wall-text painting to the administration. After a few weeks, permission came through and I completed patching the dents and repairing the walls with a couple of coats of Snowbound White, a colour that we'd painted our home. 

Late in life Garry would often say, "I wonder, wonder..." I liked to interpret this an a kind of summary as I thought about his vast and full life, exceeding the bounds with his imagination—he kept wondering. .

In thinking about the colours for the I WONDER wall painting, I was drawn to the quiet floating shapes of Garry's white on off-white imperfection paintings (1975) reproduced here, on the back of the folder. I chose an off-white, Divine White (SW 6105), that matched the off-white discoloured paper of these paintings. We were bother very fond of these peculiar, intentional and ephemeral works. 

I made an I WONDER drawing in Superstar Shadow, Garry's signature font and started taping it out in that institutional bathroom. He looked on as I measured and taped. I had often assisted Garry in making his large paintings, but had never participated in the initial drawing and measuring. It took time and Garry was failing. I got as far as the 'D' on Saturday August 7th, the day before he passed away.

I wanted to complete it somewhere else and so I was very grateful when Jonathan Middleton, Director at Art Metropole, agreed enthusiastically to my proposal to do it as a large wall painting to be part of the Remembering Garry Memorial Celebration. Painting here is particularly meaningful because since the 1970s Art Met has been an important distributor of artist books including NSCAD Press books and Garry's own printed matter—a place of wonder. I painted with Mark Bell and Eric Glavin, who worked on other wall paintings for Garry over the years. Both generously offered to do the painting in his honour. 

Cathy Busby

November 2021