Dorothy Lawson is full of witty remarks as she jokingly says, "It must be Heritage Week, this is where they bring out all the old stuff". This talented lady graduated from the Cooperstown two-year graduate program which trains students in art history and conservation techniques.She later went on to do her practicum with the Fogg museum in Boston. This prominent establishment is the oldest of Harvard University's art museums, housing some notables such as Cézanne, Degas and Manet's to name just a few.
Lawson and her husband Eric moved to Bowen Island in 1979 and set up a home business together where she worked at conserving works of art. Her specialty was preserving paper and small textiles; she also did some paintings. A stickler for perfection she set out almost immediately working on prominent pieces by Emily Carr, " Carr used to paint on construction paper (the heavy stuff you find in schools) because she was too poor to paint on canvases. "My job was to delicately pry the paper off the ply wood", says Lawson. She never wanted to know how much anything was worth, in case something went awry with the conservation.A gallery up in Banff sent her a crate filled with master works from Walter J. Phillips, a famous Canadian painter and woodcutter. She spent an entire winter restoring 120 pieces and later found out she had the entire collection entrusted to her care.
She describes herself as the accidental archivist but in hindsight, once she moved to the island, her 30-year-journey volunteering with the Historians was inevitable, "the minute you walk off the boat you are immediately slotted into the community, everyone decides what you are. Well, of course Eric and I both dealing with artifacts were approached by the Historians", says Lawson.
She started off by conducting outreach exhibits within the community. She helped raise money to build the museum in 1983, as there was no place to store all the documents that had accumulated over the years. Archives such as telephone books dating back to 1957 when numbers consisted of only three digits are now housed at the museum. Then, the demand to see photographs prompted Lawson to develop the archives. She went on a pursuit of knowledge and took as many online courses and workshops as the Archives Association of BC could host. Computer savvy, Lawson applied for a grant to digitize as many images as she could and to date has placed 3000 historical photographs online which can be viewed and purchased at www.bowenhistory.ca.
Lawson's passion and innate understanding of island life has truly been a gift to the museum, "archives is the keeper of the flame, it's the life of the island as it is and as it was - it's there for everybody to enjoy". Now retired, Lawson is passing the torch and currently mentoring Deidre Farah to replace her as the new archivist.
