Fonds consists of 225 albums, in the form of photographically illustrated journals, documenting the activities and projects of photographer Dave Heath, from January 1, 1974 to February 23, 2016. Each journal covers a range of time as brief as a month, or as long as a few years. The first ten journals are in a larger format book than the rest of the collection and have been given titles by the author while the remainder of the collection remains untitled. The last journal (December 1, 2015 - February 23, 2016) is unfinished. There is one box which contains only ca. 223 loose pages (8.5 x 11 in.), printed for future entries in the journals (Volume 225). Volume 224 is a larger book, 7 x 9 in., and covers entirely his trip to New York in 2000.
The journals are each in their own individual boxes and are arranged chronologically with entries of varying lengths; the journals on average are composed of 71% photographic material by David Heath, 21% reproductions from books and magazines and 8% written material by David Heath. From the outside, the journals appear identical with black covers, each one expanded beyond the size of the book spine and filled with precisely placed pictures and mixed media layouts. Some journals begin with text, others may have either a clipping from a newspaper, book, magazine, a print, an historical photograph or a photograph taken by Heath. Composed around his musings, creative instincts and thoughts on core thematics the pages of the journals extensively treat a range of subjects visually and textually. Heath is preoccupied with his identity as an American expatriate living in Toronto, the city, urban life and being an artist in Canada. He personally grapples with his own history; the loss of his family, being abandoned and being Jewish. His tendency toward bouts of deep depression, his desire to create art, to pass on his knowledge and inspire others through art and teaching and his angst toward personal relationships with women are treated extensively.
"I told myself that if I start to put my thoughts to paper I could, in about 10 years or so, reclaim them and organize them into a theoretical treatise on the language of photography" (David Heath from Journal no. 1).
Heath used the journals at first as a place to present and organize his thoughts on photography but became progressively compulsive about arranging, composing and collecting each thought, idea, conviction, fear, dream and desire he experienced both in sleeping and in waking life. The final presentation of each journal is technical, planned, and as precisely composed in image and text as a film would be. Heath liked to play with the juxtaposition of images and photomontage. Overall the journals are, as they were intended, a voice of the time, a cultural portrait, a sketch of time and space. For Heath, his journals gave a self-constructive texture to his life in the same way that he described Peter Beard's obsessions with ephemera and creating journals (Journal no. 125). The journals offer a rare glimpse into the process of creating from an artist's point of view. Heath's psyche is revealed and the reality of how difficult it is to establish and maintain a career dedicated to creation surfaces brilliantly and prophetically. An artist, a student of Heath, and anyone involved in creating art would find these journals an engaging and invaluable source of reflection on the artist in society, the creative muse, and the balance between creation and making a living that every artist must maintain. Moreover, the journals offer an entry into the life of David Heath, the photographer, during a period where he was no longer producing or showing that many photographs.
Over the 40 year span of the journals Heath became a compulsive journal creator and his obsession with the journals and Polaroid photography became his art and his passion. Never able to stop at just one photograph, Heath committed himself to exploring the expressive possibilities of groups of interconnected images, moving through a number of visual forms and media. His first maquette entitled 3 consisted of three separate photographs, which were only loosely linked together conceptually and visually which Heath called, "an attempt to feel out something about the form of relationships between pictures"(Dave's Story by William S. Johnson). The way the photographs are placed on the pages and the intricate linking of the successive pages is part of the concept of style that Heath worked with. He is interested in collage to the point that it is intertwining and shaping larger images from many single images,however his main purpose was to juxtapose images through placement and order. The journals are very self-referential but do provide a window into the cultural history over a span of forty years. Heath often wrote about events in the news, at Ryerson and in the city of Toronto and Canada, as well as the United States especially New York City. He also focused on the art world, gallery openings, the politics of exhibition and teaching the art of photography in a university setting. He also explicitly struggles with the life he chose to live and the decisions that guided, yet haunted him such as his decision to reside and work in Canada.
The collection of artist's books Heath has created represents the artist's continued search for self through a photographic process that is normally associated with the innocent snap-shooter. He recorded everyday events using Polaroid SX-70 and through montage, juxtaposed images and text in a sequence of thoughts, probes, and inquisitions of the external world around him and his internal sight lines. Innocent, at least in appearance, Heath was hardly an amateur snap-shooter but used the medium to tease out the mundane and perplexing moments of life though a photographer's eye. Heath relentlessly documented everything his eyes saw and then combined the Polaroid images with ephemera, images from secondary sources, written reflections and inner dialogue, recollections of a days activities or a return to a reoccurring theme all of which combine to form a visual history, a cultural portrait, and a legacy of thought and inquisition. The journals are not meant as individual pieces but flow together in presentation, composition, and the overall feel. They are a window to the artist's psyche and were intended to be works of art themselves.