Kendall Messick and the Projectionist

My father hired a projector and reels of short films for my birthday parties when I was a kid. Then one year none of my friends wanted to watch the show. The latest episode of Dr Who was on TV and they preferred to watch that.

Parties and me are often not the best fit. I couldn't see how anyone would prefer TV to a genuine movie show in your own home. I got my private viewing the next day, then the projector and films were returned and were never brought to our home again.

I've been to a few private viewings since. Most spectacular was during a visit to Hong Kong in 1984. Rolls Royces and Bentleys lined an upward swirl of driveway to the hilltop home of Sir Run Run Shaw, the island's movie mogul, all very Citizen Kane. I sat next to Sir Run Run for dinner, then the party descended to his private movie theatre and a preview screening of Gremlins.

The theatre had red plush seats, but even so lacked the magic of days of yore. Those days were brought back splendidly on a visit to a heartwarming multi-media installation, The Projectionist, at Wake Forest's Charlotte and Philip Hanes Art Gallery yesterday. The photographer Kendall Messick celebrates neglected lives, often of the elderly. In Gordon Brinckle he has discovered a real charmer.

Brinckle was a film projectionist for many years, moving like a dancer between two projectors he termed his 'girls'. Movie theatres truly were palaces, where regular punters could taste the lives of the splendidly rich for an evening, with ushers and uniformed staff among the palms and the marble statues. Brinckle believed in creating beauty. Fine though the theatre was where he plied his trade, it still fell short of the ultimate magic.

So he built his own miniature theatre in the basement of his home, The Shalimar. It was available for private showings, but he would also come and sit there to achieve a sense of calm. It is kitsch, but kitsch as true art. Seats are sited over the backs of resting fawns a seagull flies across the ceiling, a miniature organist on his wurlitzer brings in that whole shebang of bigscale entertainment. It's a matter of living the dream and finding comfort in it, sustaining your own vision against the odds.

The show begins with a grand collection of portraits of Brinckle and his work, with museum pieces of his life in glass cases. Highlight is a recreation of the Shalimar, with a documentary of the man's life as the main feature, Brinckle inviting us all into his world. It's a magical place to be.