Gallery News

Their Stories post featuring two creative dating profiles!

February 16th, 2016

In celebration of Valentine’s Day, this week’s Their Stories post features two dating profiles that end up a perfect match. Love is in the air!

vintage portrait

Unidentified Portrait from the Thomas Bouckley Collection. Collection of The Robert McLaughlin Gallery.

Portrait #1

Photo received by Matchmaker Dolly, with completed application as follows:

Name: Donald Bence Arthur

Age: 57

Height: 5’ 5”

Weight: 168 lbs.

Hair: mostly brown

Eyes: depends on shirt colour; sometimes green, sometimes blue

Background: Scottish/Hungarian

Occupation: semi-retired shoemaker with small mobile unit (pulled behind bicycle from town to town)

Hobbies: baking, alpine gardening and painting en plein air, mostly chimneys in winter… but also fences, (any season for the right price)

Favourite Sports: ribbon dancing, competitive whistling and caber toss

Best Attribute: a natty collection of footwear

Worst Attribute: cigar breath has occasionally been mentioned

Views on Children: don’t mind as long as it’s from a great distance

Spiritual Beliefs: I would prefer not to be matched with anyone who owns a ouija board.

 

vintage photo

Unidentified Portrait from the Thomas Bouckley Collection

Dolly matched Donald with Portrait #9.

Name: Eleanor Mondegreen

Age: 65

Height: 4” 1” (seated), 5’ 3” (upright)

Weight: (including boned corset, petticoats, bloomers, woolen dress with brass buttons) 180 lbs. (buck naked, 135)

Hair: yes

Eyes: not bad, getting harder and harder to read in dim lighting

Background: actually, just an old bedspread the photographer hung up

Occupation: proud nurse with the VON for decades until a terrible ruckus, fisticuffs really, with a patient who disputed my insistence that the hymn ‘Keep Thou My Way’ contained the phrase “gladly, the cross-eyed bear”.

Hobbies: tatting

Favourite Sports: darts

Best Attribute: a sense of whimsy

Worst Attribute: cannot keep a secret for love nor money

Views on Children: it’s all a backward glance at this point

Spiritual Beliefs: I would prefer not to be matched with anyone who owns a ouija board.

 

Follow-up Notes:

Three years after their marriage, Donald became fully retired by which time Eleanor had tatted herself a 20th century wardrobe. They lived long and happily. Dolly’s greatest success story.

 

By: Carin Makuz

Related News

Thank you to North American Steel Equipment Inc.!

We’re fortunate enough to receive different kinds of support from various people and organizations.  Whether through donations, in-kind gifts, or visitors sharing their experiences of the gallery with friends, every little bit helps to further our commitment to cultivating community and connection through art. North American Steel Equipment Inc. (NASE) has long provided in-kind donations […]

The new RMG website is live!

At the onset of the pandemic, it was clear that while our website provided an opportunity to engage with our audiences digitally, the age of our website limited its use.  We quickly discovered the limitations of our website were going to be restrictive as we shifted to a hybrid of onsite exhibitions (and digital programming. […]