Family Stories

This morning my sister messaged us about some art collectors that were looking paintings from Prince Edward Island artists and wondered if they had any of our great-uncle's paintings. She then found an article about a church that's being renovated into apartments, the article on the church mentioned that the altar murals had been painted by our great uncle, Rev. Adrien Arsenault. Adrien Arsenault is my maternal grandmother's younger brother. I knew that I had seen a picture of these murals and set out to find them.

St Mary's of the People

Adrien Arsenault was a prolific painter, poet, musician, and professor of fine arts at St Dunstan's University now the University of Prince Edward Island. Sadly, I don't have any of his paintings. My brother does have two books of his poetry that our mother had. 

Rev. Adrien Arsenault - St Dunstan's Faculty Portrait 1961-62

Adrien liked to try all kinds of techniques in his paintings. I remember one that my grandmother had, where he had pulled string through paint on a folded canvas. I found a couple of his paintings online.

Painted while a student at seminary college, circa 1945

Easter Morning Cantata (Government of PEI)

Adrien was quite renowned in PEI especially within the artistic community. I always felt though that he must of been a little isolated from his family. My grandmother always called him Father Adrien even though he was her little brother. As a child, I called him Father Adrien too but later on I just called him Adrien, he seemed more comfortable with that. I wish I could have known him more as an adult. 

I found this online about him written for an art review in 1964.

"Rev Adrien Arsenault - Chair of the French and Fine Arts Department at St Dunstan's University.  Rev. Arsenault was an interesting personality in Canada's art scene at the time. He had degrees in art and drama from Laval University, the Sorbonne, and the University of Washington. He was a professor at St Dunstan's from 1963 to 1969 and then went on to teach at the University of Prince Edward Island. He was the province's representative on the Canada Council for the Arts and was one of the moving forces in the building of the Confederation Centre for the Arts. He was also an artist in his own right, working in various media, including acrylics."

Below is the translation of an article written by Georges Arsenault for the La Voix Acadienne published in Nov 2019.

"This little boy became one of the greatest Acadian artists on the Island. He is Adrien Arsenault (1925 -1989), from Saint-Raphael, in the Evangeline Region. In 1952, he was ordained to the priesthood and immediately became a professor of French and English and director of the theatre company at St Dunstan's University. He taught French and art history at the University of Prince Edward Island. A poet, playwright and musician, Father Adrien was a prolific writer. He preferred to write in English to be read by his colleagues and friends in Charlottetown.

His colleague, Professor Rose-Marie Berardinelli, translated a few of his books, including one called "I am My Own Seasons" (1984).

In some of the poems in this collection, Father Adrien evokes memories of his childhood, including this one:

My mother liked flowers very much

but my grandfather always entertained 

that she shouldn't waste good earth space

as irresponsibility as she did.

Everything else would have been better

he used to say; even onions.

How thankful I was then

that my grandfather hadn't created the world.

There would have been no butterflies

no buttercups, no daises.

Just plain crops.

He might have also cancelled out the rainbow

and decided that birds - like children -

should remain silent at all times.

So I added to my night prayer

Thank you, God, for not consulting my grandfather

when you made the world."

Portrait of Adrien painted by his friend Henry Purdy

Father Adrien was the officiant at my parent's wedding. 

Sadly Adrien passed away at a rather young age. He's buried in the cemetery at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, in PEI. My sister and I visited his grave site during the Arsenault family reunion.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel

Crossing the border

Yesterday I crossed the border to take the dogs for a walk, well it was just the inter-provincial border but I think it's the first time I've been out of Ontario since Sep 2019. 

A story came up on my FaceBook feed about a cultural trail of art installations in downtown Gatineau. Gatineau is just across the river from Ottawa so I decided to take the dogs over for a walk. We parked at the far end of Jacques Cartier Park, good thing we did as the nearer parking lot would have cost $8, although, it turns out that street parking in that area of Gatineau is free on Saturday, Sunday and holidays.

The first sculpture we saw, while not part of the cultural trail, was of the Rocket, Maurice Richard. You know, I had Rockett with me and never thought to get a picture of him with the hockey legend.

Next we came to the Canadian Museum of History which still isn't part of the cultural trail.  There is a pathway around the museum that I had never done so I decided to do that before finding the Gatineau Cultural Trail.  

View of Parliament Hill from Gatineau

The Canadian Museum of History has a façade that's designed to look like a a turtle head, the turtle is the symbol of Mother Earth. The architect who designed the building has designed other museums including one in Washington DC.

I managed to get down the stairs without falling as both dogs were pulling on their leashes. Teddy trying to get to the bottom and with Liam trying to get to the sides to meet the people who were sitting there.  

Liam thought the dog in the canoe was pretty realistic as he barked at it the whole time we were near this little water feature. Rockett came out for a photo op with statue of the Indian Chief Tessouat. The little birch bark lodge is in an outdoor children's area. I would expect in normal times they would have activities going on there but there aren't any group activities going on right now although the museum is open.

Now we were off to find the cultural trail.  There are thirty some art works on a three kilometer trail. I only did about half of the three kilometer route. I also thought all of the art installations were sculptures but many were the graffiti like paintings on the walls of buildings.

I found it a bit difficult to find the plaques for some of the installations and when you did find it, some of them were not translated.  The only official language in Quebec is French. My favourite installation was "One Man's Trash is Another Man's Treasure, probably because it's of a dog. I also liked the two buildings that were totally painted, you could see something else on them each time you looked.

On our way back to our starting point, we passed by the building where I last worked. It hadn't changed much.

Before heading back to the car, we stopped outside the tourist information office to take a picture of the dogs in the chair outside.  

I'll probably go back one day and park at the other end of the trail so I can see some of the other installations. A fun day out close to home.