Madeleine G.

Riding my bike on St-Michel Street on a Friday, large colorful knits wrapped around trees in the Oscar Park caught my attention. Just a few years ago, there would have been a few young women there, perhaps some boys, to claim, with a rebel stance, this gesture as a political act, a form of street art in wool. Surprise! These knits were rather announcing an activity of Montreal-North’s Cercle des fermières the next day.

I went back to the site that Saturday.

The first members of the group I spoke to were friendly and they invited me to the park’s clubhouse to see the exhibition they had prepared on the history of the Cercle des fermières du Québec and that of their local chapter. Although reluctant to be photographed, they allowed me to take a group photo with the firm promise that you would not see them on the Internet. Unhappy with my pictures inside, I suggested a second attempt outdoors, which proved more satisfying. It was then that Madeleine joined the group.

Here is a lady who is not afraid of the camera!

She explained that it was a great day for their group. They were celebrating the centenary of the Cercles des fermières du Québec, in addition to that of Montreal North. More importantly perhaps: it was also the first exhibition of the chapter in twenty years.

Madeleine is a Montreal native. Before joining the group, she was looking for an activity that she could share with her mother and sisters. It was her husband, a native of Saguenay, who suggested that they consider the Cercle des fermières. The chapter’s membership has been stable with just over a hundred ladies for ten years or so. Men can participate in activities, but cannot join the circle. It is becoming clear, however, that it will need to recruit new members soon, since almost all current are of retirement age.

Madeleine also invited me to visit the room in the basement. There I found several looms. One of them makes it possible to weave 72 inch wide fabric. As there are not enough requests to organize group classes, there are possibilities to learn weaving on a person to person basis or in pairs.

By chance, the provincial president of the CFQ was also present. She informed me that today, barely 2 % of the members come from agricultural homes. This figure perhaps reflects somewhat the proportion of farmers in today's society.

In unison, her colleagues told me that Madeleine had worked very hard to make this day a success. She is also the one who keeps the circle’s blog. You will find the site’s address under her picture. She does all of this on a voluntary basis, in addition to her work in property management. No wonder she was all smiles in front of the camera!

Madeleine in the Oscar Park with the Cercle des fermières

Charles G.

People who regularly play tennis on the courts of Nicolas-Viel Park may already have seen Charles going around hidden corners to pick up the lost tennis balls he gives to schools which will install them under the legs of chairs and desks. It is there that I met him. Many may be surprised to learn that, at over 80 years of age, he is still working, as much as his health allows him to.

He was born in a Fransaskoise* family of 14 children in the hamlet of St-Isidore-de-Belleville, near Batoche, the village where the Métis rebellion led by Louis Riel was defeated. He still goes back there to see relatives. Charles and six of his brothers and sisters are still alive. Three of his sisters were nuns. One of his brothers, who married a woman also from a large family, has left nealy thirty grandchildren.

His arrival in Quebec took place in St-Bruno in 1948. There he did, with the St. Gabriel Brothers, his juniorate, a period of study and training after the novitiate, that prepares for professorship. This institution still had cultivated land in the late 40s when he was studying there. He remembers having played tennis and other sports. After becoming a brother, he taught in Deschaillons, then in St-Bruno, village. Being bilingual, he taught in English at the Lajoie School in Outremont. At the time, in the mid-fifties, the school included an Anglophone sector.

In the sixties, the community asked him to move to the Chicago area. He first was assistant in the high-school and later administrator of the Merryville Academy. It is a former orphanage that was then in the process of becoming an institution for abused and mistreated children. At the same time, he continued his training at the De Paul University, the largest Catholic university in the USA.

In 1969, he left for Papua, New Guinea. Two days after his arrival, he was already teaching. From the early seventies, he was director of an institution of Monfort Catholic Missions until 1993. He worked there in the towns of Daru and Kiunga. This mission was originally held by religious communities from Québec. It was subsequently taken over by communities from Singapore and India.

Upon his return from the missions, he was commissioned to help his cousin, parish priest of North Battleford, Saskatchewan.

Back in Montreal, he now works at L’Escale Notre-Dame, an organization that hosts men between 18 and 35 with addiction problems, to drugs or alcohol. These people are undergoing a 14 week therapy. Initially, he was working as a doorman. Since this function left him a lot of free time, he turned his small office into a rosary workshop. To date, he has crafted over 3 500 rosaries.

L’Escale Notre-Dame is located in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, just like one of the schools for which he is collecting tennis balls. Since 2004, he has been responsible of the organization’s bookkeeping. Until recently, Charles was still working there full time.

When I saw him again a few days later, he showed me some pictures of him at different times of his life. You can see them as well by following the link below.

*Francophones of Saskatchewan

Charles at Nicolas-Viel Park

Marie I. & Simon M.

Daylight takes its full clearness and high luster, in my opinion, at the end of September. So I went to the Ahuntsic Park on a beautiful Friday late in the afternoon, because I particularly appreciate the oblique light that passes under the trees at this time of the year.

I noticed a group of young people running and thought that they would make a good subject for a collective portrait. The day was declining, but I did not dare interrupt them during their training. When I later noticed that they had slowed down and were stretching, I approached them, thinking they had finished their activitiy.

After a brief conversation, I took some pictures of Marie and Simon. I had just enough time to learn that they were both national caliber sprinters and they were training at the Club d'athlétisme Perfmax-Racing based at the Claude-Robillard Sports Complex. At this point of the conversation, they left me because their coaches had arrived. What I had witnessed earlier was only their preparation! I certainly would not have been able to keep up with them running to continue the discussion!

After a little research, I discovered that Simon is a competitive runner and that Marie is among the cream of junior sprinters in Québec. She is very close to the best in Canada on the distances of 100 and 200 meters. She currently tries to reach her maximum level of performance. Student in a CÉGEP, she would like to obtain a university scholarship, even if it means leaving for the USA. It seems that the best one can hope for in athletics in Quebec is the equivalent of tuition fees payment at Université de Sherbrooke.

We wish them both to be persistent in their efforts and to achieve their personal goals.

Marie & Simon in the Ahuntsic Park

Mario M.

I met Mario for the first time at the opening of his exhibition "Des années cinquante à nos jours" at the Maison de la Culture Ahuntsic-Cartierville. We crossed paths there again the following week, which allowed me to take some pictures of him and his works, along with the staff of the Maison de la culture.

Mario is a visual artist who is actively pursuing, at over 80 years of age, a long and successful career. Son of an Italian father and a Québécois mother, he was born in Villeray, but grew up on De Lille Street in the Sault-au-Récollet. He has been living for over 40 years in a beautiful house in Ahuntsic whose wood facing recalls some of his relief paintings, such as "Arabesque," which appears to the left in the photo below.

It is interesting to hear him tell us, in the video that accompanies the exhibition, how the artwork and ornamentation of the Church of the Visitation influenced his early creative evolution. In the video, he also describes a now gone landscape. Until the forties, around De Lille Street there were agricultural lands with small hills and streams to the south of Fleury Street.  This area has since been filled and leveled to become a residential area crossed by Sauriol and Sauvé streets.

Son of musicians, he initially tried to juggle studies in music and fine arts. He finally chose l’École des Beaux-Arts. He then worked in the set design workshops of Radio-Canada, which was then in its early years.

It is however a national competition that really launched his career. He was the laureate designated to make a large mural for the Canadian Pavilion at the Brussels World Exhibition in 1957. The work was conceived in the former studio of Alfred Laliberté, on Ste-Famille Street.

With the fame achieved by this accomplishment, he toured the architectural firms that were busy designing large public and corporate buildings. He personally offered his services for the realization of art works integrated to the architecture. His contribution in this respect during the sixties and seventies is important. His achievements go from monochrome reliefs to colorful ceramics, including large illuminated glass walls in a subway station. They are all beautifully integrated and adapted to their destination buildings. According to the character of the place, they sometimes combine standard building materials to more noble materials.

At the end of this period, Mario turned more actively to sculpture. He took part in symposiums and biennials abroad. He was even invited to participate to the exhibition "Padiglione d'Italia nel mondo" which presented a selection of works by artists of the Italian diaspora in the context of the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011.

Alongside his production, he led a teaching career, including at UQAM. There, he regularly taught drawing, which he regards as the foundation of all his works.

For the past twenty years, he has been devoting himself mainly to painting. His recent pictorial works occupy a large part of the current exhibition. To know more about his achievements, I invite you to visit this exhibition ending October 17th and take the time to watch the video. You can also click on the link under the photo.

Mario standing between Arabesque, to the left and Sable, to the right