“When myth meets fact, and our imaginations interact, we form our fairytales within the city.” Natasha Henderson presents a group art show at Fleurbain.
Vernissage ~ Saturday, September 8, 7-9pm
Exhibition dates: September 8 to October 13, 2012
Address: Fleurbain
460 St Catherine Street West, unit #917
between McGill and Place des Arts metros.
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Montreal and fairytales, I find the idea rather timely. This past year, I have finally recovered from my exuberant arrival to the East, to the bigger smoke, and I was suddenly struck with a strong desire to return to the West. I decided to stay after a long internal debate and to return to school and continue with the opportunities that have been abundant here. But as a compromise, I am ready to recapture parts of my past. Memories I tried to overwrite and rebuild with what seemed shiny, new, modern… important. Such as the way the salty Pacific air has a way of folding very large dreams into the psyche. On occasion, I was out there on the edge of the continent staring off across the ocean, looking at the mass of water that separates the two landmasses, the East and the West. As wondrous as the ocean is, my favourite places were and still are forests. Being surrounded by trees and on meandering trails that seek out various interesting landmarks, that is when I am most at home. It was something I had all but given up when I arrived in Montreal. The parks are beautiful but open, spacious and manicured. Even the wilderness to the North of the Island of Montreal was to me interesting but not majestic. As time passes, so does our memory of things and now, there are parts of the city that have a place of solace for me. They catch my breath when the light is just right and there is a little glow above everything green and growing.
Yet in my bones is also the moss that sits on the North side of everything and is moist and springy save for a few weeks in high summer. Eagles sitting on limbs of once mighty giant trees or flying to and fro along the beach. It is something to be so close to them that you can see the stern, coldness of their hunting eyes bore into you. The lushness of everything that in winter simply increases with the weight of water and cold. Foggy nights where the sounds of deer sound eerily like human footsteps then suddenly explode into a crash of breaking limbs and scraping antlers when they hear your clumsy stride. Sitting around a campfire with the glow of embers lighting up human shapes in the darkness. Then the telling of stories and resurfacing of myths to entertain during the long evenings outside and under the canopy of stars. And sharing what kind of little people you believe are out there, tipping over your wood pile at night or hiding your keys in the morning. That was how it was without TV and before the Internet. The mountains too, how they are everywhere around you, and the bigger they are, the closer they appear. As a hobby, I would climb up various mountains and then sit and look at the view. Glimpses of the city below, the far off stretches of water, small lakes, and yes, clear-cuts. I refuse to deny the truth of the West, that it is awash in poor management and scanty protection from the hungry maker factories of China and the West. That is another story though.
So why do I stay in the East? I am often trying to prove myself justified for my choice. So fairytales are what in part might keep me here. Defined as a short story that features folkloric and fantasy characters, magic and enchantments, fairytales often describe something blessed with unusual happiness or a story that could not possibly be true. Every time I wander around the city with my eyes and my heart open, I am astounded by this magical place. And things happen that cause me to experience happiness. Just the other day, I was crossing a busy street on my bicycle and the chain came off in a wrenching, awkward manner. I was all annoyance on the inside and propelled myself across the cross walk with my foot, chain dragging on the pavement. Then the usual dance, find a stick on the side of the sidewalk and put the chain back on and find some way to not be as furious as I am that I still haven’t fixed my bicycle. Suddenly a large blue Gaz van was beside me and a Quebecois man was waving the largest white Kleenex I have ever seen. That is when my heart was smiling and my day better than it was before the chain fell off and I am nearly rushing over to gratefully take the hanky and thank him, flirting a little in my fledgling French, and loving that someone noticed and wanted to take some care of me. This did not happen to me in the cities of the West and I crave it. I am thrilled that men here open the door for me and wait to make sure I go through first. Delightful.
I know men are different here and it follows that so are the women. I have spent five years wandering around and looking at one of the most beautiful cities I know and thinking endlessly of the people who built it. In the West, it is as though generations of men have created cities by putting two pieces of material together and asking, “Does it hold and does it function? Yes? Good, nail it.” Yet here, in Montreal, it as if men reached that point and instead said, “”Does it hold and does it function? Yes? Ok good, now how can we make it beautiful?” Montreal is to me a city of beauty and beauty can lead us to happiness, and even to spiritual aspiration according to the matrix of the fairytale. If you don’t believe me check out Roger Scruton’s documentary on Why Beauty Matters. And in the nature of fairytales, maybe Montreal is also too good to be true and that it will lose its beauty as we march forward under the belt and tie of progress which is why I am clinging fondly to the old world ethics and aesthetics when I create art.
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