Studio Kit

(All pics are clickable for a bigger view)

When I left you on Monday, Angélique and Claude had flown, and behind them, the city of Montréal burned.

In colonial times, fire was the greatest fear; and it was often used as a tool of rebellion by slaves - a way to let their owners know exactly what they felt. In fact, Angélique had used this tool already - the first time she and Claude ran away, she had set a small fire as a distraction.

But this particular "little fire" through great bad luck spread, and so Montreal burned.

The very next day, having been found in Pauper's Park, Angélique was arrested and charged with deliberately burning the city down, although the accusation against her was based on nothing more than supposition and rumour.

At her trial, witness after witness was brought before the judges, none of whom had actually seen her do it, or could prove that she had; the most credible witnesses against her were a woman who was "feeble-minded" who said Angélique was "agitated" before the trial, and another, with an ax to grind against Angélique, who said that Angélique had threatened to "burn the city down".

Months into the trial, a witness was finally brought forward who could swear that Angélique was guilty:

..a five year old white child.

That was good enough for the judges, and though Angélique still protested her innocence, she was found guilty and sentenced: her hands were to be cut off, and then she was to be burned alive in payment for her sins.

At the time, being found guilty of a crime was not enough. A prisoner who was found guilty, was then tortured after the fact in order to determine if a full confession of the crime had occurred. Unsurprisingly under these conditions, it was often discovered that more crimes had been committed.

"Fortunately" for Angélique, at least one of the judges on the panel felt that there was some doubt whether she had done it - based mostly on Madam de Francheville's impassioned belief that Angélique would not and could not have done such a thing. He appealed her sentence, and was successful - instead of having her hands cut off and being burned alive, Angélique would be given the boot, then hung, and then she would be burned.

But, you may be asking, what about Claude?

Claude, that inconstant lover, left her behind that night in Pauper's Park and was never heard from nor seen again.

Despite this betrayal, even under torture, Angélique refused to give him up. Though she finally did "confess" to setting the fire, she remained steadfast and true, saying that it was she and she alone who committed the crime. One year after her death, they closed the case and stopped looking for Claude Thibault.

Montréal was re-built, life went on, and until 1925, Angélique was forgotten.

Since then, scholarly books and papers have been written about her; novels, poems, art installations, films and a documentary have been done with Angélique as their subject; but no one really knows the truth of what happened that night.

Some scholars believe that with her history of setting fires, her proven behaviour as a runaway slave and fire being a tool of rebellious slaves, it could hardly be believed that she didn't set the fire.

Other, more recent scholarship says that Angélique was a scapegoat - a problem slave who needed getting rid of - with an enemy in the house next door who fell asleep over a fire that burned too brightly, and an angry public who needed someone to blame for their losses - it was only too convenient to choose Angélique.

If you've a mind to do it, there's a wonderful site HERE that offers a comprehensive study of the city at the time, offers witness testimony and other historical documents - even a short film that shows the route that Angélique was taken on her way to the gallows.

You can become the detective-scholar yourself and perhaps, you'll come to your own conclusion about who committed this crime.

But I chose Angélique for "Broad Changes" because nearly 300 years after her death, she finally did effect change - her story brought to light the fact of Canadian slavery - an important historical fact - but also one that changes we Canadians culturally.

No longer can we point fingers at our neighbours and say "Not I!"; and through that realization we can then look at the racism and xenophobia that lives in Canadian hearts just as it does in our American friends to the South.

But more importantly, for me personally, Angélique is a heroine because whether she did or didn't burn Montreal: her heart was fired with rage against injustice, ablaze with a passionate belief in her right to have autonomy over her body, inflamed by her certainty that it was her right to choose who she should love, and alight with her belief in her singular, inalienable personhood.

Angélique: incendiary.

Linking with Nina-Marie for Off the Wall Fridays and Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday at Better Off Thread

Well hello, and happy Monday!

So, you may be wondering who this lovely (temporarily) bald woman is - her name is Angélique - and she's the whole point of this piece. You see, it's for a call named "Broad Changes". Participating artists are supposed to depict a woman who precipitated change, whether in the world, in thinking, or in you personally.

Named Marie Joseph Angélique by her owners, but known as "Angelica" in her time, she holds the unusual distinction of being a folk hero under a name she was never called, in a country in which she never set foot.

A woman born into slavery in Portugal in 1710, she was sold first to a Flemish man, then to a French businessman who had settled in New France (later the province of Quebec in a newly formed country, "Canada"); and then, upon his death, Angélique was willed to his widow.

Ordinarily a house slave in the household of Madam de Francheville, Angélique was sometimes sent to work on the farm owned by the de Franchville family in Montréal, which is where, historically, we meet her.

She was put on a breeding program by her owner and produced three children who had passed away, and at age 23 so, she was sent to Montréal; and there, she fell in love - with a white indentured servant named Claude Thibault, who worked for the same family at their farm.

Snatching what time together they could between their long work hours and under close watch, their love grew, and Angélique found what small happiness a slave could find. But troubled times were on the horizon - the lovers were about to be thwarted.

Angélique was to be sent back to the de Francheville home, where she was going to be made to breed yet again.

Angélique protested angrily and often against this plan to her owner, and as a result, things went from bad to worse. Feeling that she couldn't control Angélique, Madam de Francheville arranged to sell her to another farmer, and the lovers would never see one another again!

Desperate and in love, Angélique and Claude plotted an escape.

They were successful, but were captured weeks later. Claude was sent to jail, while Angélique was returned to her owner, who would decide her fate.

But Madam de Francheville was too busy with her late husband's business to deal with the "problem" of Angélique; so Angélique was able to visit Claude while he was in prison, and it was there that they once more plotted their escape.

When Claude was released from prison, they did so, this time under cover of fire!

But, things went far more badly than they could have imagined.

Having set a small fire in the attic of her owner's house in order to distract from their escape, Angélique inadvertently set the entire city of Montréal ablaze; and that night, while they fled, the city burned.

She was eventually re-captured, tortured, sent to trial, found guilty and hung.

Now known as "Angelique", she is a folk hero in Haiti, where, because of her "French" background, they, with their history of slavery under the French, claim her as their own. In Haiti, she is lauded as a heroine who burned down the city of Montreal in 1734 as an act of defiance and righteous anger because of the abuse she received at the hands of her owners.

In Canada, she was largely un-recognized and certainly wasn't lauded, she was a slave after all, and she burned down a city - this was certainly not the stuff heroines are made of! Add to this the fact that Canadians were and are very invested in sweeping our history with slavery under the rug unless it's in the light of being a nice country that slaves escaped to and it is no wonder at all that Angélique`s story was almost never told.

Nevertheless, there have been books, plays and even epic poetry written about her over the years; and approximately 15 years ago, one novel in particular captured the imagination of the public, The Hanging of Angélique: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montreal.

The tale of the slave who rebelled against a master's "right" to dictate her life was suddenly a heroine in the country where she died, and more than two hundred and fifty years later, her life has been celebrated - first, with a park and then, more recently, a statue was erected in her honour in "Old Montreal".

This past January, a new documentary about her entitled Black Hands - Trial of An Arsonist Slave was released.

But did she do it?

More, on Wednesday.

After our discussion the other day, it seems that at least some of you would like to know more about what happens behind the green curtain - and want to know about the spark (or fire!) that gets me started.

Although one person said that they'd prefer it if that explication were a "few short sentences", that's not how I roll. These entries will be word-heavy*, so get yourself a cup of coffee and settle in, or move along! ;)

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As I may have mentioned here before (and if not here it is) - generally, I work concurrently on two, sometimes three pieces.

I've found this method works well for me because I almost always have two or three pieces sitting here (points to a spot between my eyebrows), and quite heavily too! Often, it's very hard to think about anything else and I get quite cranky if they sit there for a long time without being made. (Yet another way in which BSP et all suffer!)

Of the things that hunch on my forehead, one is the piece I'm working on, and the other one or two are the ones that are clamouring to GET OUT. (Read that in an Amityville Horror voice.)

That doesn't mean that I only have two or three ideas at a time, on the contrary, I have hundreds of potential pieces in notes and sketches (almost all of which will never be made); but it does mean that they're the loudest at that particular time.

So while one is curing or drying, I work on the other, and vice versa. Usually I can only do two in this way, otherwise I lose focus, but I have, on occasion, done three. (The third has always been an abstract when that happens though.)

Side note: when I was working on the mermaid for the City Waterfront Gallery in Charleston, one that's currently clamouring was in fact, yelling at me REALLY LOUDLY and I think that's why it was so hard for me to work on the mermaid, and why it turned out so bland-o-rama.

So that was a really good lesson learned for me. Although it was immensely flattering to be asked by the curator to create a piece for the show, and I jumped at the chance to be in a gallery - if it's not something that I can get behind - I need to say:

Because I hate, (HATE!!!!!!!!) that that mermaid is out there, hanging in a gallery (!!!!!) as a representation of my work.

(As for the piece that was clamouring - I'm currently waiting to hear from the family about whether it's okay for me to use her as a subject, so though it still wants to get out, it has to be patient.)

NOW TO THE POINT OF THIS POST (lol)

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Thirty-five years ago, as a teenager, I wrote a play called The Chair By The Window; the titular chair in the title a metaphor for the complex mix of love, loss, and betrayal that comprised my relationship with my mother. The play won an award, and was mounted by The Sears Festival, (does The Sears Festival even exist any more or was it a local thing? ETA: It was and it does!)

Then, twenty years ago, as young mother, I found myself writing the piece again in the form of an unpublished novel (oddly, and against my will, it was from my mother's perspective) and that too, was called The Chair By The Window.

In March, after the intial weeks of shock and numbness wore off after my mother's passing, I felt a strong need to talk about our relationship again, but this time through cloth.

And of course, it was that damn chair again! I had intended to make a physical representation of it (I can absolutely see it whole on the design wall in my head); and I've made sketches, written notes, gathered inspirational images and created it in my mind again and again.

That piece was what I had intended to work on concurrently with the one I've been talking about these last couple of weeks, but every time I tried to do more than what I have already done, even if it was just gathering fabric to audition, I'd end up turning off the light and leaving the studio.

It seems I don't yet have the emotional distance from her death that I need to bring it to life at the moment, so the one I'm currently working on has been solo work.

But, I've had another one in mind that has been percolating for at least a year, about an aspect of my (equally complex) relationship with my father.

It involves a man's dress shirt - and really - that's the whole of it - the image I've been carrying in my head for this last year or so - a man's dress shirt, worn, slightly rumpled - the kind your kindergarten teacher asks your mother for, so that you can wear it in art class to protect ~~you~~ your clothes. But I haven't known what to do with that shirt.

The other night, I woke from a dream about another piece (that's now yelling at me), so I clicked on my night light and scribbled it down in the notebook I keep on my bedside table.

But when I was done that, I started writing about "the shirt" - and suddenly, there it was - whole, in my head.

I'll be starting construction this weekend I think, so next week I'll continue to show you progress on the one we've been talking about these last two weeks and I'll also talk about the shirt piece.

Okay? Okay.**

See you tomorrow with some buildings!

P.S. - linking back to Nina Marie Sayre for Off The Wall Fridays!

* I'll label these word heavy posts "behind the green curtain" so if it's not your thing, if you see that label, you can just scroll on by. :)

** And if you find it confusing or annoying to have me talk about one thing and illustrate another, feel free to let me know, and I'll change how I go about sharing that process - like maybe do a start to finish on one piece, regardless of the fact that two are on the go, or do a week of one, then a week of the other.

Something like that, it's all fluid right now, so whatevs.

On diamo!