And the greatest challenge of a body is to die?"
– Marina Zvetaeva
By Masha Shturman
CROUTE DES ARTS
"The greatest challenge of a soul is to live.
And the greatest challenge of a body is to die?"
– Marina Zvetaeva
When most visitors travel to Lachute, Quebec, they go to Mt Tremblant and St Sauver. Rarely do they find the gem that is the Route des Arts, an experimental art trek established by the local community project center in 2001. Its main aim is to educate the public about modern art, but local artists also benefit from a center dedicated to noncommercial artistic expression.
Ilania Abileah is one such artist. Born in Israel and immigrating to Canada, she has been living in the province of Quebec since 1968. "I am one of those painters who painted first and then went to school to study it," said Abileah. She tells a story in a series of miniatures, each of which captures a memory from her life journey. The choice of medium, colors and "dear-to-the-heart" objects create a sentiment of artist’s fragile inner world.
When asked about how she initially got started in painting the miniatures, she confesses, "I didn’t have money to buy big canvases and other supplies so I used small plates and detailed everything I had wanted to express on big canvases in this small format."
With Ilania’s blessings, my hospitable guide, Anne McLaughlin, and I continued on. Our next stop was Armand Destrosmaisons. He introduced himself as a rosierist and a sculptor. In the middle of his rose bushes, Armand pointed to the 200 year-old house that he took apart and piece- by-piece transferred from a different area of Quebec to this spot overlooking a peaceful lake and rich forest.
Armand works with wood, steel, and stone. He fuses all three into structures of organic shapes masterfully creating compositions. The 13th child in a family of 14, he has an open heart and deep respect and appreciation for nature that is clearly visible in his work.
Armand’s strong message of peaceful interaction with nature brought Anne and I to Sheila Watson. Sheila’s adroit work with clay, form, and movement produces a vibrant, almost sexual dance. Her pottery sets the stage for experimentation but creates a safe environment for interaction. She said, "In order to learn the secrets of nature and interact with it in an empowering way, there is a need for personal transformation".
The theme of transformation brings me to my friend, Anne McLauchlin. When Armand was talking about transformation, her eyes lit up "this is exactly it," she kept on repeating. An insightful appreciation for transformation appears throughout most of Anne’s paintings. In a series of butterflies and a piece titled Migration, Anne is able to capture both the powerful eruption of new, evolving forms and the aftermath tranquility and lightness of being within them. Ancient symbols assist her in telling a story of evolution of plants, animals, humans, societies, planets and the universe. "One never stops learning," said Anne; "I left my home at the age of 18 and that was the best thing that ever happened to me. I broke the chains of my own conditioning and became the artist I always wanted to be."
"The distinction between the craftsman and the true artist is parallel to the distinction between knowing what one can do and not knowing, which is why one occupation is safe, and the other always incipiently dangerous," said English novelist John Fowles. His words resonate Susan Lee. "I don’t know why, I just have to do it," answered Susan excitedly when I asked why does she paint. "My interaction with the physical world creates a pressure in me; something develops that demands expression".
The square, uncompromising movement of the sun through the skies in After the Storm ripping open the composition recreates the intensity of loosing ones virginity.
Susan’s ability to transfer an emotion into a recognizable language to all viewers is uncanny. "This is joy," said Susan’s husband, Michael, when asked to comment on his wife’s painting, Free Fall. Using dark colors, grey, black, and deep blue, Susan manages to bring light and illumination to each painting. Her work with simple form is also amazing. After meeting Susan, I understood why she "just has to do it".
Moving along, we arrived at the house of Gina Antinozzi. "A newly developed soul comes out of the physical body at the point of death. Death is nothing but a new birth," said Gina. Part of her Spiral Installation, triptych Demeter, symbolizes a transformation as well, but this time a transformation from the physical into the spiritual.
Our journey on the Route des Arts has helped me find what I was looking for on my path of discovery and understanding. Aside from modern expression, the more conventional works are there as well. I realize the purpose of Route des Arts is to showcase local artists, not to claim a new and uniform movement with a loud social and political message. What 43 artists offer here is a labyrinth of discoveries for anyone taking this ‘route’.
