Red Blue Flowers

Who is "Aunt Laura Cam", from Downsview, Ontario?

Well, we know Downsview has definitely changed, A LOT since the inscription on the back of this piece. If we were to assume, this is at the earliest from let's say 1980 but I would put this embroidered piece somewhere more in the early 70s based on sight alone. 

As I write this copy sitting on the shaded back patio of a cafe here in Guelph, Downsview continues to change. An article I read less than a week ago announced a large jet runway that Bombardier previously used to test airplanes is being converted to a massive new housing initiative. 

15 purpose built communities are being slated for the grounds, creating homes for 100,000 people, which is amazing and much needed.

Nearby and established in 1999 sits Canada's first "National Urban Park", Downsview Park, also on the grounds of former aviation space. You may remember Downsview Park from June 2003's "Molson Canadian Rocks for Toronto" concert featuring the Rolling Stones, AC⚡DC, RUSH, a bunch of others or possibly the 2012 Radiohead show in which negligence from an engineer is found to have caused a stage collapse that killed the bands Drum Tech. 

I spent some time trying to find a population graph to show how much Downsview has expanded since the 70's with hard numbers, a once northern neighbourhood slowly becoming part of the cityscape, but I came to no avail.  The ending result would have been me explaining with figures that whomever "Aunt Laura Cam" was when this piece was in-scripted, is living (or dead) in a completely different world than the one that existed at the time, as we all sort of are.  As I settled on the name Time Passages for this project, I was emboldened to use the name because many of these pieces do seem to work for me like some sort snapshot of a time long expired, or a key to a door that leads to a room that no longer exists.

It's nothing to fret too much over as time is one of these weird things in life that just continues whether you want it to or not. If you want time to pass, you can just close to your eyes and when you open them, it will have. When you're waiting for a day to arrive, marked on a calendar for a special event, you don't even have to do anything to make that come to you. It's coming whether you want it to or not.

On the contrast to that idea, you can't stop time either. You can't extend time and you can't delay time. This is a lesson we all learn over and over again at various periods in our existence. 

I sit here thinking about Aunt Laura Cam, dead or alive, the future of Downsview and the future in general. I think about whether any of this would have came to mind if this inscription on the back wasn't there. I think about going to a thrift store and writing all sorts of nonsense on the back of vintage pieces as bait to fool people like me in the future. I think about going back up to the counter and ordering another pot of Earl Grey Tea.