Cara Morton

Cara Morton in Regina, 1998

Today Sarah Abbott informed me that our mutual friend, Cara Morton, passed away on the weekend. I had not even been aware that she was sick, let alone had been struggling with cancer for a few years. I've not seen Cara in years but she was wonderful, very funny and cheerful and intense, all at the same time. I'm embarrassed to say that I'm not entirely certain when or where we met. It was probably Toronto; perhaps Sarah introduced us. I remember being entranced by her short film "Incantations" which I curated into a Filmpool show in 1998. Around the same time, Cara drove through Regina. I'm not sure what she was doing; Vacationing? Moving? Shooting a film? She did have a camera and film, and even some jugs of chemistry. She developed film in my basement (that was a year before I started at the university so I was doing occasional basement darkroom work, but only at night because my windows had no curtains). She left me her jug of film bleach which I used for over a year as I had no idea how to make my own. We dried her film on my clothes line in the back yard, which she thought was charming. I'd not seen her in a long time, but she left an impression that endured.