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visual Art Blossoms in France by Paul Deggan If in 1977 a gypsy fortune teller had predicted my future, I would have laughed in her face. I would have told her that such an unlikely tale was the stuff of romantic novels, that life was not like that, and that she was just hoping for more silver. At that time I was 44. looking ahead with no great relish to middle and old age. and feeling thai I had missed out on something important. I had been working as a graphic designer, but I painted only when I took trips to Europe. Within a couple of years I found myself married to a young French woman, raising a new family and living part of each year in Montaigul-le-Blanc, a medieval hill village in the Auvergne region of Central France. It was there that my wife Babette and I established the Summer Centre for the Arts. While running the art centre I had to leam to cope with a new language. 1 also spent m> tunc restoring ancient buildings, rediscovering the European landscape and painting this landscape with a passion that had escaped me during my 20 years in Canada. This gave niy life a rare happiness and all the ingredients of a romantic novel. Being a painter and not a novelist. I wrote an autobiography. All Our Summers Are French was prompted by the often hilarious encounters between the North Americans who attended workshops at the Summer Centre for the Arts and the rustic inhabitants of our village. Once I completed the manuscript, the publishers urged me to illustrate it. 1 first resisted, not really believing myself to be an illustrator, but I succumbed and finally became totally involved in the drawings. I designed the format of the book loo, but that had always been my intention. Maybe that's why people have been flocking to the Summer Centre for the Arts. Both Capilano College and Elderhostel have been Hooded with enquiries about our summer workshops and also with requests to teach there. The response to my book has been tremendous. M y only problem now is that a full life passes at a horrendous rate. The only thing that could slow it down would be boredom, and that is a commodity that has been noticeably missing in my life. All Our Summers Are French, distributed by Douglas & Mclntyre, is available for $14.95 at most local bookstores. For information on the Summer Centre for the Arts, call Capilano College Extension Programs at 984-4907, or call 986-0082. Language and art workshops and Elderhostel programs are being offered several times throughout the 5 the repulsive nature of the substance is replaced by fascination with the beauty of these 'overwhelming natural energies' as they seem to transform into majestic but abstract landscapes." 1 At a later date. Barry will also be creating a public artwork based on material from local oral history archives. Huge talking heads telling stories will be projected at street level in a high-traffic area of downtown Vancouver, catching the attention of passersby. A s with all of her artwork, it will provoke interaction and offer a critical interpretation of urban environments and consumer society. Secret Gardens and Forged Subjectivity (April 14 to M a y 30) will premiere two video installations by West Coast artists Mike MacDonald and Corry Wyngaarden. First Nations video artist MacDonald's wall of video screens, "Secret Gardens," is an ethnobotanical document of native plants and endangered plant species in British Columbia. A lyrical tapestry of seductive colours filmed in meditative "real time," it forces us to look at the subtleties of nature through a Native perspective. C o n y ' s installation. "Forged Subjectivity," presents the imagined life of a 19th century pioneer woman who ran for Canadian Parliament dressed as a man. A n arrangement of texts, video, artifacts and photographs, this work provokes questions about women and self-identity. New Director Brings New Directions by Ann Macklem Presentation House Gallery recently appointed Helga Pakasaar as interim director/curator. Helga will be running the gallery for the next eight months while Karen Love is on leave. She is an apt choice, having worked extensively in the area of historical photography. Gallery patrons may remember her Post-War Photography in Vancouver, which she curated for Presentation House in 1986. Helga's experience is not limited to photography, however. She has curated contemporary art exhibitions in all media, including Revisions (First Nations artists from Canada and the U.S.) and Voice Over (women visual, video and installation artists). She has worked as an independent curator for. among others, the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Contemporary Art Gallery, and for two years was die Associate Curator at the Walter Phillips Gallery in Banff. In addition to her curatorial projects, she acts as an art bank consultant, sits on the Concord Pacific Public Art Committee, and has published numerous catalogues, essays, and reviews. Her interest in photo-based works is reflected in two upcoming exhibitions at Presentation House. Judith Barry: Projections, running March 3rd to April 4th, features two multi-media works by the New York City-based artist, writer and former performance artist. One of these. "Model for Stage and Screen," is to be displayed in a custom-built chamber, which has been designed in such a way as to effect retinal hallucinations in the viewer. Here Barry upsets the traditional role and expectations of the spectator by having him/her become, in a sense, the projector. Barry 's second installation. "Imagination, Dead Imagine." toys with the spectatorial e in a different way. The artist cribes it as follows: " A n androgynous id is projected... Sounds of the head wly breathing fill the space. The head is BnCj waiting. Suddenly a substance irs over it from all 5 sides, drenching it vhat appears to be a bodily tluid. The ctator wants to lum away, but cannot-- gaze is compelled through the ocation of the scogric drive. Horror at Life in a French medieval village has aroused some sort of creative contagion for which I hope there is no cure, o Still from Mike MacDonald's Secret Gare 1 fell my art had blossomed, and during my lime in France my whole family has blossomed artistically too. M y first son, Andrew, who lives in Germany, became an artist and designer. M y second son. Mark, has turned out to be a successful theatre designer and is working on his second novel. M y daughter. Sarah, wrole her first book, a mystery, last year al Ove age of 12 and illustrated it herself. It is currently being used as a texi in the Engli class at her high school in France. M y wil Babette has been turning out some lovely pottery. Life in a French medieval village lias aroused some son of creative contagi' for which 1 hope there is no cure. A n s A c » M . r c h / A p r , l 1993 t e 11