photo credits this web page: Toni Hafkenscheid

In the escape and rescue stories in this exhibition, women rescue themselves and other women in an anxious procession that moves around the gallery.

Like every migration, it is dangerous to seek a better life. Alone, we are thrown into a brutal and primitive world.

In spite of myths of self-reliance our best selves are social; the sophistication of our world is almost unfathomably interdependent.

We need others. We want our lives to have a purpose, a meaning beyond survival. We want to belong. The meaning offered here is friendship.

Our belligerent world swirls with anger, resentment and prejudice. Although it's hard to believe hope is possible any more, every heart can grow bigger.

We have to try.

.............................

Thanks to Angela Brayham, the tireless and always helpful Director and curator of Gallery Stratford. Thanks to the team she put together to install the exhibition particularly

the meticulous Bob Phillips but also Ian MacArthur, Rebecca Kielek, and Mikayla Racz.

Thank you to the Ontario Arts Council for a grant that allowed me to work on this project for the last year, Terence Dick for his essay,

Craig Foster and Foster's Inn, and Kim and Kevin Gormley owners of The Old Rectory Bed & Breakfast.