I have some fantastic news to share, as an ‘emerging’ or new artist! Last night I was presented with a First Prize at the Art Contest Gala awards ceremony for the long-running Pierrefonds Art Contest.(1) Open to all residents of Montréal – of the entire Island, not only the City of Montréal – this contest covers a multicultural population of just over 2 million people. So it’s kind of a big deal, despite its unpretentious name.
The Awards Gala for the 36th edition of this annual art contest took place at the historic stone-built Pierrefonds Cultural Centre (2), after which the artists, dignitaries, and other guests all walked next door to the Vernissage at the award-winning and much more modern Pierrefonds Library. (3)
The art exhibition portion of the Pierrefonds Art Contest is open to the public at no charge, from today through December 18, 2022, during regular Library hours; Monday 1300-2100, Tuesday-Friday 1000 to 2100, and Saturday-Sunday 1000-1700. The Pierrefonds Library is at 13555 boulevard de Pierrefonds, and is part of the City of Montréal library network.
To be clear, there is no overall Grand Prize in this art contest and there are several award categories. There’s one contest division for Professional Artists, and another for Amateur Artists. There are additional age-based divisions, for Seniors (age 65 plus) and three groups for Youths (5-8, 9-12 and 13-17 years of age). The streams for Professional and Amateur (adult) artists are further divided by medium (the type of art materials used); Drawing or mixed techniques, Painting (e.g. acrylic and oil-based paints), Recycled art (created from recovered or found materials), and Watercolours or gouache.
My First Prize is in the Amateur Artist category, for Watercolour or Gouache artworks. Gouache is an opaque, non-transparent, water-based pigment which is considered to be much easier to use than my beloved watercolours.
This First Prize was really quite a surprise, as I only began learning to paint – and even to sketch and draw! – last year in large part because of my rare disease. Many years ago I’d started doing amateur nature photography, while working in bioethics. When I was struck in 2016 Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS, formerly Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy or RSD), it became too frustrating for me to try to handle a camera without using my severely affected right hand and arm.
Although CRPS affects mostly my right hand and arm – with chronic neuropathic pain, spasms, tremors, and more – it’s also both an autoimmune disease and a neuro-inflammatory condition. This means that there are full-body symptoms of CRPS. These include a ‘mild cognitive impairment’ (MCI) which developed in 2018, a disability that ended my healthcare career.
Now a volunteer Patient Partner in chronic pain projects across the country, I began use my art – my nature photos at the time – to raise awareness of CRPS and other pain conditions. I started exploring the world through watercolours in 2021, as a form of movement-therapy for my neuropathic chronic pain – and as brain plasticity training to hopefully prevent further cognitive decline.
One of my paintings won the inaugural Art Awards of the Canadian Pain Society in 2021, in the Patient Category, while one of my smartphone nature photos won a second-place Honourable Mention in a national forest photo contest presented by The Bateman Foundation last year.
My artwork has appeared in 15 group exhibitions so far, including the What the Pop! 2022 outdoor art show in Hudson (near Montréal) for emerging artists this past August.
My art practice is so deeply intertwined with my chronic pain and rare disease that my motto is “Art Despite Pain”.
As always, thanks so much for stopping by. Stay safe, keep well, and take care of yourself. All the best! And if you’re in the area and plan to stop by this art exhibition at the Pierrefonds Library, let me know so we can try to meet up there and say hello in person! The Comments feature here on the blog became too much for my cognitive impairment to deal with, a while back, so I’ve had to disable it. Feel free to reach out over on Instagram or Twitter.
Note:
My husband took some phone-photos for me at the Art Contest Gala awards ceremony for the 2022 Pierrefonds Art Contest and art show, but there was a professional photographer for both events; I’ll post better photos when I receive those!
References:
(1) Pierrefonds Art Contest, 2022 edition, general information only:
https://montreal.ca/en/articles/pierrefonds-roxboro-art-contest-4158
(2) History of the Pierrefonds Cultural Centre, housed within the historic Edgar Campbell Budge house:
https://www.deviantart.com/lapointe56/art/Maison-Edgar-C-Budge-312160675
(3) Pierrefonds Library information, including a list of the building’s own awards and prizes:
https://montreal.ca/en/places/pierrefonds-library