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The Vietnamese Refugee monument on Somerset Street

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"Refuge - Mother and Child" , Vietnamese Commemorative Monument by Pham The Trung located at the south west corner of the intersection of Preston and Somerset street.

The empty lot between 838 and 844 Somerset Street

click to enlarge images At Rochester Street on the southwest corner is an empty lot which is slated for development. The current signage suggests something good will arrive soon .  This lot was once occupied by a Hotel/tavern called the Vendome. The Vendome was a dive, there were shotgun pellet holes in the back door when I first went into it in the mid 70's, the photo on the right is in the second floor hallway of the rooms shortly before it closed/burned. That photo is from a larger and very old series of mine called "keep this place".

492 1/2 Somerset Street

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492 1/2 Somerset Street and its parent building which is called Bolling Terrace 1890 on a little masonry plaque on the second floor. This building is on the south east corner at Lyon Street. The little shop with the curtained window has had a lot of tenants in the last few years. An art gallery (Gamma Ray Gallery), a  dog grooming emporium, an internet cafe/convenience store a stone carver's studio and most recently there is a sign in the window that indicates the current tenant would like a partner to help share the work and expenses involved in maintaining the studio. I  spent a fair while in there once helping some students hang an exhibition of their work. The students were Lisa Egan, Linda Archibald, Tina Jubinville and Martine Chartrand. I remember poking around in the basement and it was what you would expect from a wooden frame building that is pretty much like it was when it was erected nearly 120 years ago.Draughty, damp, etcetera.

472 Somerset Street West

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This is the Ottawa Chinese Freemasons Lodge, a beautiful building that - as my wife stated - looks as if it could talk.

Somerset street

click to enlarge images 857 Somerset Street - less than a year apart the paint job I liked so much looks kind of sad. Retail space moves very fast on Somerset Street - it is a rough and tumble business environment and it can be hard to tell who will really hang in there.

Somerset street -

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This is the intersection of Somerset and Booth street on a warm summer night shown from the north east corner looking to the south west. This is the heart of the street, lots of shops, a bus stop, supermarkets and a really diverse community uses this intersection.

click to enlarge the images The view from inside the store  was taken from inside an Indian food shop which was burned out about 5 years ago . This shop was rebuilt and occupied by another Indian shop with a new proprietor. Two mayoral elections ago the  building at 806 Somerset was the campaign headquarters  for an unsucessfulcandidate - this image was made from a bus  . . . . The vertical shot is taken behind the drugstore on the north east corner of the street - more or less directly behind the man seen lounging on the bench in the top photograph.

a friend recently photographed . . .

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This is Juan Geuer, he is 89. I first met Juan many years ago at a show called  'art in situ' . Juan made a foucault pendulum - with lasers attached - as his contribution to  the show. I saw him a couple of days ago at the 2006 grad show  at the University of Ottawa visual arts department. Juan is a wonderful artist whose work is entirely to my taste -   he makes clever, elegant  simple things that exploit the basic physics of electromagnetic waves through the use of interference phenomena to amplify and make visible our selves in relation to these omnipresent determinants of our world. One of  my favourite works is his "people sensing seismometer". He only looks old.

and my own images from the show . .

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'prognosis" inkjet print 44x96",  Justin Wonnacott, 2006

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'cancer productus' inkjet print 44"x96", Justin Wonnacott,2006

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'conjugating reason - as a verb - fumbling with the belief systems profferred to me' inkjet print 44" x 96", Justin Wonnacott, 2006

Fun snaps from the exhibition at AxeNeo7 . . . .

click images to enlarge Photographs by Caroline Babcock

Left to right we are, Justin Wonnacott, Marion Bordier, Lorraine Gilbert, a sunfish my daughter Mabel caught and my good friend Shan Leung who has an excellent sense of humour. Caroline Babcock is a communications student who handles a camera quite well - thank you Caroline.

Lorraine Gilbert - les messagers

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Lorraine discusses her work with some students and a view of the gallery which indicates the size of the work.
Last week Axe Neo7 opened a group exhibition that includes work by Lorraine Gilbert, Catherine Poncin, Claudia Liekam and myself. The exhibition is called "LE SUJET CONSTRUIT EN PHOTOGRAPHIE" and the curator is Marion Bordier.

click image to enlarge  'Messager 2'  from a series of 4 light jet prints by Lorraine Gilbert 2006