Stuart Murdoch's Autobiography (Informal)
A short story on how Stuart got here!
Administered with a grain of salt preferably
Born in the early nineteen sixties, too late to be a baby boomer, to early to be a Gen X'er. This will have unforeseen ramifications for most of his life, and has been speculated as the driving force behind his creative impulses, these are found in his gallery, and numerous other places, such as flickr & tumblr.
Moves houses, frequently, throughout his early life. One move involved a change of hemispheres. This meant a split high school education. Another constituent in his development as a 'creative' that only will become apparent many years later.
Left high school, despite his secret enjoyment of 'learning' amplified possibly by peer pressure, to undertake an apprenticeship. An archaic system that indentured young men and the occasional young woman for four years. The apprenticeship runs its natural course, just, but by now in his late teens he is restless and not content to take the path of marriage and a mortgage lying down.
Tries a variety of jobs, in a number of fields, all of which are generally unsatisfying, with one possible exception, cab driving; while living in a series of shared houses. It is unclear whether the shared houses made the job bearable or the job made the shared houses bearable. The job pays well despite the long hours, these long hours are flexible though and it fits in with his life for almost two years. Some of the shared housed were to supply endless pythonesque humour for years to come possibly conbtributing to his creative energies as well.
Eventually though he realises that cab driving is another dead end job, he succumbs to his secret enjoyment of knowledge and returns to school to finish his high school education, with a focus on photography. He enjoys this so much he spends two years studying and creating a portfolio which gains him entry to one of the city's prestigious photography courses, all the while cab driving to make ends meet, because the hours really fitted in with his studies.
He wisely chooses a local school and continues with his part time cab driving. Drawing on his split years of high school gave him a surprisingly good knowledge of the industrial revolution and its impact on culture and society and the arts. His studies go well; good teachers always help.
After completing his undergraduate studies, he gains some casual work in a photography college as a technician. This also exposes him to the idea of teaching. Something that pays even better than cab driving but probably only has marginally less hours involved. The next logical choice then seemed to be make teaching a career.
Back to school again to gain a formal teaching qualification and into the education system to teach photography. In the interim he has had a couple of solo exhibitions in artist run initiatives, and group shows a plenty.
The internet arrives, he is now distracted by the shiny allure of web fame or at least telecommuting to work. None of which as of this writing has eventuated. Side interests however that come from this are graphic communication, typography and good design all round, very useful tools it turns out for a then young creative, and those four years of indentured torture have kind of paid off too.
By now he has met and married the love of his life and life generally moves quite smoothly and well. Photography as a creative outlet has been somewhat on the back burner for much of this time until, flickr, cheap 5 mega-pixel cameras and phone cameras arrive.
This is almost too good to be true, computers, photography, the web, what else could there be in life? Yes you guessed it more education. A two year Master of Arts Degree followed, with a few exhibitions thrown in for good measure. 
Somewhere in amongst all this, a couple of hard disk scares turns him back to using more film than he had in the early 2000s. Now in a new century he has amassed an astonishing number of pictures, and begins to develop projects that have lain dormant for years or were only made possible by the portable technology of the iphone and the internet itself.
In the interim he has the good fortune to meet many like minded souls and continues to share his love of photography online and in the real world as both a creator and a curator.
Last update? - 03/30/2021