One of the most important documents in the Kawartha Art Gallery’s archives is a handwritten address given by co-founder Joyce Enslin (1930-2022) at a meeting of the Lindsay Rotary Club in the spring of 1976. The Lindsay Gallery – as it was then called – had opened on April 24 of that year, and while much had been done, the Gallery was still very much a work in progress.

1981 saw the Canadarm installed on the International Space Station, gas stations switch from imperial to metric measurements, and the legacy of Terry Fox live on through a run organized in his honour. Locally, the Town of Lindsay was gearing up for its 125th anniversary the following year, the railway line running along the middle of Victoria Avenue was abandoned after more than a century of use, and The Lindsay Gallery hired Maureen Bell as its third director.

Not long ago, my colleague Ruth Kelly-Koebel oversaw the installation of an exhibit at Kindred Coffee Bar, a short walk from the Kawartha Art Gallery. This exhibit, which is titled Authenticity, is a collection of artworks prepared by the talented students enrolled in I.E. Weldon Secondary School’s International Baccalaureate (IB) visual arts programme.

“What can I give him?” is a question repeated in the final lines of Christina Rosetti’s famous Christmas carol, In the Bleak Midwinter. And it is a question asked – albeit in a very different kind of context – by those who care about the arts in their community. As we approach the festive season, the question “what can I give?” takes on special meaning and invites us to consider what giving has meant for the Kawartha Art Gallery over the past half century.