I realise that providing a full chronological development of Granddad’s would be difficult, if it’s ever needed. He stopped dating his work in the 60s. I've asked him why he did this and he counter-asked my why he should bother when nobody sees his work. This is how he answers a lot of questions. So everything from the 70s onwards is a bit of a muddle, and he's not very cooperative is giving it much order. In the next couple of months im looking to get him a book made of all this work, so he can see it all in one place. I'm hoping we can look through it together and that he'll have something to say about each painting, and perhaps even a rough date.
A further hindrance is that 10 years of his work was lost to vandalism. I have a really touching recording of him relaying this life event, but unfortunately i cant share it in full as a few details i'm certain he wouldnt want anyone beyond the family knowing. All i can say is that for a short time he was selling his less favoured paintings to pay rent while keeping the ones he was most proud of. At some point he ended a relationship (before he met my grandmother) and he came home to find his jilted ex had taken to his prized collection of achievements with a razor and buckets of white paint.
He tells the story much better than i do, and it's an enjoyable listen because he still has so much emotion in his voice when he relays those moments upon discovering what had happened.
Finally, the biggest hurdle is that he has destroyed most of his work. He was pretty much operating a policy of one in one out until my grandmother died. His estimates- which might be over or understated, i have no idea- is that he's destroyed around 500 paintings in his lifetime.
Anyway, decided i dont want to give up on the docu idea just yet. However, im going to need a laptop or computer that's capable of running a decent video editing programme smoothly.