Historic Truro captured in book

Author and illustrator to be at a launch event on July 7

Author note: Book illustrator Minette Murphy has chosen the pronoun they/them for the article.

TRURO — Those interested in Truro history and the many fascinating and picturesque buildings which have graced the community will want to check out the new book Sketches of Historic Truro by author Joseph Ballard and artist Minette Murphy.

The creators will be at a book launch on July 7 in Truro. Being held at the Bluenose Institute at 23 Inglis Pl. in the downtown, the launch event gets underway at 7 p.m.

“The book was originally scheduled for release a little over a year ago. The publisher delayed it for reasons connected with the pandemic,” Ballard said. “Although news of the delay was disappointing at the time, the notable difference between then and now is the allowance for an in-person book launch — which is certainly a gratifying event for any author with a new book in their hands.”

Murphy has moved to Ottawa to complete a master of architecture, but will be back for the launch.

“I miss Nova Scotia tremendously,” they said. “I have planned a visit specifically to attend the launch. I am so excited that we are able to do an in-person event, celebrating the book and all the hard work Joe and I have done. It will be good to chat with people about their thoughts on the book.”

Murphy added the original art from the book, more than 90 drawings, will be up for sale.

“I’m hoping many residents of Truro are in attendance because I would absolutely love if the original artwork ended up with their respective homeowners,” they said. “Truro has a lot of pride in their built heritage, so, I think, the book would be a great keepsake for all Truronians.”

Ballard, whose previous work includes Historic House Names of Nova Scotia, and Fairy Dells and Rustic Bower, said the book came about as a natural progression from creating a large database of early newspaper briefs (pre-1925) that mentioned noteworthy changes to Truro properties.

“Taking every documented event — from primary sources only — and categorizing each one, first by street and then, secondly, by property owner, showed which properties were richest in documented events,” he said. “So, the idea was to select properties that were still standing that also possessed good potential to say something definitive about historical aspects regarding the date of construction, the skills of the builder, description of the house or grounds, and the style of the period with a generous sprinkling of social history to lighten the subject matter.”

Murphy talked about first getting started by drawing heritage houses in Halifax.

“Which is where I grew up. There were increasing numbers being torn down, so I started that as a means to document them. I gifted many of them to my dad, who showed them off to his friends at the Heritage Trust of Nova Scotia (HTNS).”

Murphy said the lead to commissioned portraits of homes and a feature in HTNS’S quarterly publication titled The Griffin.

“This was also around the time when I met Joe, who was the president of the HTNS,” they said. “He told me about this idea he had, of documenting a significant portion of Truro’s built heritage. It sounded super exciting, so I agreed to hop on the project.”

As for the process, Ballard said he began the writing before it was determined that the book would feature illustrations rather than photographs. He said after being about a quarter of the way along, he realized creating a “sort of artbook would enhance the finished product and might effectively moderate any deficiencies perceived in the writing.

“I wanted to get the illustrator, Minette Murphy, started on the sketches as quickly as possible because I had no idea how long the drawings would take,” he said. “So, based on the data I had on individual properties, I let Minette know which properties I planned to interpret and then added a few others that simply could not be left out because of their age or some other important attribute that demanded inclusion.

“Although I had a head start with the writing, I believe Minette finished the illustrations first.”

Murphy talked about having seen only one or two of Ballard’s entries before starting to draw.

“While I love to do onsite drawing, and that is usually what I do, the sheer number of buildings I needed to draw would have required me to move to Truro and draw every day for months,” Murphy said. “Instead, I went down to visit Truro on a few occasions, and we drove from building to building taking pictures. This way, I could pick away at drawings on evenings and weekends from Halifax while I was studying at Dalhousie’s School of Architecture.”

Murphy talked about doing the bulk of the drawings at their grandmother’s old home in Meteghan.

“I stayed up there for the month of May by myself, with no internet, getting as many drawings as possible done. At this point, I would have sent the scanned images to Joe, who was likely writing throughout this period. (And) I was able to read more excerpts after this point.”

Murphy said it would have been beneficial if they could have read more of Ballard’s work.

“That way, all of the wonderful stories could have inspired the drawings a little more,” they said. “Perhaps I could have snuck in some elements here and there. We both had so much work to do, however, that would have been hard to coordinate in a timely manner. Thankfully, the buildings in Truro are so expressive, they inspired me right from the beginning.”

The book, published by Nimbus, was officially released June 20.