Sentier artistique des Hauts-Boisés

The fourth annual Sentier artistique des Hauts-Boisés last July 16-19 kicked off with a cinq-à-sept vernissage and then stretched out leisurely into three full days of visits in five artists' studios. Tammy Bailey and Gilles Guimond, End-of-the-Road cabinet makers near Cookshire, welcomed 63 visitors. "I was surprised at how many people came from far away, even Rimouski," said Bailey. All but two were new acquaintances.

In contrast, "the part that gives me the most pleasure," said watercolourist Denis Palmer, "is that local people came." He also liked that there was plenty of time to talk with each visitor. There was even a good chance that some of them might see themselves in Palmer's paintings.

"The barn was beautiful, the feeling was good," said Libbey Griffith, painter. She was talking about the vernissage. It was at La Ferme Généreuse, home to Amélie Lemay Choquette, multidisciplinary artist who danced and showed oil paintings on glass. The paintings danced too.

Griffith's "plein air" oil paintings were hanging alongside Christa Kotiesen's dry pastel "paintings" in Kotiesen's garage in Sawyerville. Landscape inhabits their paintings, and their paintings inhabit the landscape. Both "new and old" people came, said Kotiesen.

Down on Clifton Road in St-Isidore-de-Clifton, close to 80 people visited Normand Gladu's studio, where he reigns over an inventory of junk, so to speak. "Don't use that word. They're recuperated materials." he said. "But they're not noble." But what an amazing transmutation he creates! His "environmental" abstract sculptures hang on the wall, using a glorious melange of found objects, from rusted metal to jawbones to plastic hair. Looking at them is a treasure hunt, on several levels.

All told, the Sentier artistique "was awesome," in the words of Bailey. "The group of artists this year, we really bonded," said Gladu. Things really came together. The Sentier artistique will be back again next year, for sure."