It was a pleasure to work on this project, researching and discovering works that I had not come across before, and delving into artists lives. The near 23,000 words I wrote for this book included biographical detail and visual analysis of the fantastic artwork on show at the Open Eye Gallery.

From Alexander Moffat's introduction to the book:

'The Mrs Jay and W. Gordon Smith art collection is a unique culmination of a lifetimes work – a commitment to the arts spanning half a century and more of cultural change and artistic growth in Scotland. To call them collectors would only partly describe the extraordinary lives of Jay and W. Gordon Smith. W. Gordon Smith was also an art critic, author, dramatist, photographer and filmmaker known for his iconic televised arts programme by the BBC in Scotland including Scope and Spectrum. He later extensively wrote exhibition reviews for Scotland on Sunday and Visual Arts Scotland, in which he would strive to see the best in an artist’s work and seek out the intentions before making a judgment.

Their art collection was built up over a fifty year period, begun by Gordon in the 1960s and continued by Jay until 2019. The decision to purchase artworks were based on one simple principle – they both had to love the work and no matter how tempting, not to spend more than £1,000. All artworks were displayed in their home in Edinburgh and artists were invited to see their own but the work of their contemporaries as well.'

As Designer and Editor Sigrid Schmeisser noted, it was Jay’s strong view that the focus of the book should not be on themselves only, but on the artists. The book was created to appear as if it was Jay’s and W. Gordon’s own artists and artworks reference book – which could have found on their own bookshelf. 

In addition to the art collection, Jay retrieved exhibition reviews from the 1990s, typewritten and neatly filed away in two folders labelled A–M and L–Z, a detail later used on the book spine as well. Varying in length and size, these carefully selected exhibition reviews and notes not only contextualise and complement the artworks and biographies very well, but also give further insight into their unique relationships with the artist over decades.