Sunday, April 11, 2010

Cultural Outing: Violins Etc.


On a cool Thursday April 8th 2010, there was no better place to be than at VIOLONS ETC... 2129 Saint-Urbain street, with a dozen members of the WASM, just as eager as myself, to learn more about this wonderful musical instrument wich is the violin. Our host Mr. Gilles Blouin welcomed us with open arms in his small shop and studio. All morning, he talked about the beginning and evolution through the ages of the violin and demonstrated how he proceeds to make it. Mr. Blouin is a highly skillled craftman who has had "pignon sur rue" for about 30 years. He is a passionate and generous man with a deep love of woods, violin, people and languages . Here are some of my souvenir pictures of this memorable outing.
Louise G. de Tonnancour









Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Louise Lemieux-Bérubé from the Montreal Centre for Contemporary Textiles

Some of you remember last year's visit to the Montreal Centre for Contemporary Textile and Jacquard Weaving, organized by Louise de Tonnancour. On Tuesday, the Centre's founder, Louise Lemieux-Bérubé was our guest speaker and we heard about the history and anniversary activities (this year they are celebrating the 20th anniversary) of this wonderful educational and cultural resource. The talk was generously illustrated, with many slides of the school's installations as well as the work of its talented students. Here are pictures of some of what we saw.


Last minute preparations before the lecture

Louise Lemieux-Bérubé and Louise de Tonnancour getting ready to start

The school's two Jacquard looms were major acquisitions. The preparatory work for the looms as well as for the knitting and embroidery machines are computerized, compressing what used to be a hundred hours of labor into half an hour.



Some of the students' creations


Here a student incorporated glass bulbs into the weaving


The envelopes are embroidered textiles!


Dance has been one of Louise Lemieux-Bérubé's major themes in her work. Below is her weaving that hangs in the Place des Arts foyer.
An earlier piece
Recent weavings that makes use of portraiture

The two Louises