When he was 11 or 12 years old, while living in Western Canada among the farmers who harvested vast sections of land that stretched flat and endless from the outbuildings to the horizon, when the setting sun was an eternal majesty, when Dr. MacGregor Parsons lived in a mansion on the hill overlooking the village below,  he met Kenneth, a dairy farmer’s son, who was in his class at school and who inspired him to perfection.

Duffy St. James had already fallen into the cusp of idealism but it was prompted not by real acquaintance, rather by shinnying upon goal posts and by Hollywood movies, images of singularity and resolve, sometimes by vivid productions of his mind. The convention of myth and fantasy was always at a distance, in another place, geographically removed though accessible.

The mystery of youth soon dissolved into the demands of education and sports. The new territory was a map of classrooms, playing fields, library, chapel and studies. From breakfast in the Great Hall to milk and cookies before bedtime, there wasn’t a moment without occupation and dedication.  Everything pointed to objectivity, a seemingly insurmountable barrier requiring constant deliberation.

The work paid off. There were rewards, both personal and demonstrative. The internal abstraction became external manifestation. There were crests, trophies, school ties, the kilt, the sporran, Bonnie Prince Charlie and the pipes and drums. It all blended into the rousing cheers, the deliberate and oft-times mocking forcefulness of regimental performance, the sacred sound of the organ at matins and vespers.

Then things changed.  Motivated this time by Principal Escott Reid, a graduate of Trinity College of the University of Toronto, a Rhodes Scholar with a Masters of Arts degree from Christ Church, Oxford. Significantly Reid had turned down a position to teach at Harvard University. Duffy unwittingly followed this diverse and adventurous path into the future, coincidentally positioning himself years afterwards at Devonshire House adjacent the esteemed Trinity College.

Though he was thought by some to have been ‘arrogant, given to excess, and a naïve liberal idealist’, Reid’s vital contributions helped to shape some of the 20th century’s most important international developments.

In the midst of this evolution and discovery he encountered Michael, an unlikely alliance, though a man of similar commitment and buoyancy. It proved to be a lasting acquaintance marked by at the exchange of personal dalliance and advancement. Importantly it involved recognition of both fact and fiction, the blur of reality, the constructs of truth, the admission of change.

What then followed was a lifetime of labour and necessity, working late, rising early, miniature holidays, successes and defeats, building up and shutting down until at last the inevitable stream of nature turned the corner and disappeared. Thereafter – spirited by a casual meeting at a bar – followed a mixture of hedonism and austerity, of oil paintings and clarity, of alteration and evolution. It was an indescribable union, cleverly united with both private and public, a description seldom capable of definition. But it lasted and lasted and lasted.

Duffy St. James captures both his truth and his lies.  The deceit is inward but it is an outward expression, a dynamic too colourful to deny.  The painted image is the least of the story. The history – like any other – is destined to gather dust and soon to be forgotten. What remains is a blob with tentacles reaching about, grasping at meaning and articulation.