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TEXTS ON ART : Image number img132
From page 81 to page 118.
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exactly. This is the time that I had to grant you at this time.
It's your choice. As for me, of course I wish you, and
from the bottom of my heart, all the luck in the world with your vision of the world.
P. S. I read your book. I will limit myself by letter and from now until
I have the opportunity to see you
in person to let you know that your book found me in a state of some
surprise given the mode of your discourse of the last few years.
I did not expect to read you in a work, ‘’a poetic discourse’’
you that seems to venerate a form of discourse more axed
on ...''theses''…remark that you dabbled a lot in the poetic
form at age sixteen…***** (End of the note.)
***** (Next page)
... All specialization is developed in a certain selectivity
where the most effective has an advantage over the less. In this sense
... blah, blah, blah, my painting excluded in its approach to power
the approaches of gestural paintings, plastic,
etc ... without a prior prejudice to their absolute value as
such ... however and here intervenes the incidence in
the role of art in this new law to art that is vested to
the general public by the new structure and new
media of communication, given to our society.
In what we call an ''art school'', impressionism,
dadaism, surrealism, cubism and so on ...
within the school itself, between the members who formed it
was being established an under or a sub-language, language that
allowed the initiate to enjoy therein the produced works,
much more than could ever
enjoy the outdoor spectators or casual viewer.
It is this privileged communication, which truly created
The ''movement.'' It gave the group
a force, a new power from which
the group, the whole ‘’movement’’ could
go and conquer a wider circle:
the rest of the social elite group, i.e. the
rest of those to whom the fresh information
was susceptible to reach. The individuals
who possessed the means to OFFER
PAGE 82
fresh information (tea parlours, literary magazines, etc..)
hallowed themselves immediately with a greatly envied prestige.
***** (Next page)
This new group of inductees then formed
of all the so-called social elite,
acquired itself a strength and a
new power (new blood!). Interpreting in
its way to the new vision of these artists
by creating new vogues, new frenzies,
new fashions, due to their financial,
political and economic situation. They could
then let filter through their actions and their politics
they're newly gained influence.
Influence that could, by this mean, reach
the ears of the public.
Either the general public was learning to see
and raise their family gradually in this
elephantine novelty which was called
skyscrapers without even hardly knowing about
the existence of a Mondrian.
Either the general public learned
to know the name of Picasso almost as
much as that of Champlain, de Maisonneuve
or New York without knowledge
what so ever in his role and his place in the
history of art.
Either he incorporated into his daily life
concepts reflecting opinions and
judgments which he ignored the origin
***** (Next)
and the scope – witness, the popular expression
with a very specific meaning: Mad as Braque.
Today, where the first instance, after
the artist himself, who may receive information is
PAGE 83
(or at least can and tends
increasingly to be)
the general public itself
It is WITH the greater public itself that
the artist creates schools, create movements
and acquire power and strength.
In common with the general public the artist
will develop and use this ‘’over-language’’
which allows insiders to enjoy the most
deeply as possible the works produced there.
To do this, openly and in public,
the artist must announce the colour of
his new and particular language:
openly and directly with the public
he will develop word games and mind games
that only the insiders can understand.
As previously among
intellectuals - even the creator had to select
the desired and get elected by them
***** (Next page)
excluding disruptive dissent
of the inner sanctum of the ‘’elected’’ to be able
to create school and movement; it is today
in mass of the great
public that the artist-creator will establish
the brotherhood of his peers and that to
the exclusion of disruptive dissidents
and their vision. Two art lovers trained in this way
possibly would not have taste for the same works
or the same artists. Two artists
will be able not only to elaborate differently
on art but even in a
quite divergent way this time in the sight
and knowledge of the general public.
Differences and misunderstandings are
visible to more people are not
as such a new phenomenon. It would
PAGE 84
suffice on this subject to browse in old
magazines or chronicles of arts and letters to
remember the animosities and miscommunications
of yesteryear. Suffice it to read a few
samples of passed correspondences
exchanged between two artists or two writers
that we much appreciated
***** (Next page)
one and the other and to hear them insult,
ridicules and accuse each other
of not being in the loop, to realise ...
Or again it would suffice you to see again with
pleasure a former classmate to
realize how much you regret that life
has deprived you of his presence, but that a
good bottle emptied together in the soft
envelope of your memories recalls
to your memory how you loved to play
hockey together and talk about girls, but
also how your likes and dislikes
did not go to the same authors.
These differences and the incommunicability’s
do not all originate from rivalries and jealousies
or again of narrow-mindedness and futile
stubbornness; often their root are
deeper, as deep as the need to
kill the lamb: it is to eat it
and live and not by hate, or even fear, or to destroy it.
There are some who are happy anywhere
as long as the air is fresh and there is a bright sun. There
are others who are happy even if it rains
two hundred days a year provided they live
***** (Next page)
PAGE 85
in the home that they built themselves, decorated
and loved. Who is wrong, who is right? It depends
in which of the two groups one belongs to.
It is about the same in the different schools of thought
in art as elsewhere. We expect of those
that we meet that they will talk to us about what they
are living, that they expose to us their universe and that they
will make us appreciate it. Among the richer universes,
we will often opt for the one that
the author has had the most success in making us love,
the one who speaks the most to our mind, which will
most make dream our heart, that will
permit us the most to enhance ourselves, to
grow. We will maybe appreciate the others
but with an admiration
mark by respect rather than love and enthusiasm.
The heart needs to rise.
Humans need to live and to have a feeling
of greatness, full of vibrations, of possibilities.
----------------------------------------
***** (Bio., Page: 524) (1976)
***** (May 10th , 1976, Monique made a request to Concordia University to be
accepted into the program of ''Masters in Fine Arts.'' Despite all her skills and
references to support this, she was refused. She told me that she had cried for
two days of anger, frustration and sorrow. The reason for the refusal is that at
the time the faculty of ‘’Fine Arts’’ was completely ‘’dominated’’ by the ‘’Abstract’’
movement and that Monique was ‘’figurative and a colourist’’. As required in the
presentation of her request, here is the text that Monique attached to her
application for admission.)
May 10th , 1976
Faculty of Fine Arts
Graduate Program
Sir George Williams University and Loyola of Montreal
PAGE 86
To whom it may concern,
To introduce myself and present the reasons pertaining to
my application to the program Art Studio offered by
your faculty, I include this document in my file.
At the age of eleven, I began to meet my needs
by selling arts and crafts. All the objects that I created
were exclusive.
I really began to paint in 1959. I devoted myself to
this activity until the day I could have adequate
equipment to address sculpture. At least, that is what
I thought then. The movement and the quality of colour
and brightness fascinated me. I also wrote
poetic prose with my friends, we interpret these works in all
‘’the yards and the cellars’’ around, reciting and singing them.
In 1961, I wrote an essay. This work was my first
overt social criticism. From that day, I apprehended art in
terms of a witness-products of expression. My friends and I
had created the theatre ''of the wolves'' that was established
in the ally Louis Hemon.
In painting, first fed by resources of the environment,
after having tried the traditional, stylisation and abstract,
then of a ''pop'' tainted by the influence of the ready-made,
it was only in 1964 that I suddenly discovered the meaning of
the deep commitment that binds the creator-painter to his work.
I had a glimpsed at the rich resources of apprehension and analysis
that offered expression. Art seemed to bind me to my quest
of understanding and consciousness. Creating could be more
than a mind-game. Creating was becoming a conceptual tool
of objectification of perceptions. Creating, a possible approach to
life.
‘’Soul expression’’ thus became an approach, a movement, school
and technique. It is with this approach that I apprehended
the lines of force and influence of our contemporary society.
It is with the help of this participating learning technique
that I embarked in the mastery of the instruments of
PAGE 87
communication and information of our time.
***** (Next page)
My path is in the process of a generation
which tends towards versatility and adaptability, aware that
the hour has struck to find the deeper meaning of life and the
mastery of the environment.
I was able to gain experience in this world by working,
starting in 1966, at the level of practical education and training
in various sectors, leisure, enhancing, delinquent youth,
institutionalized education, etc. ...
I am a creator and designer.
As the path of my thinking is primarily conceptual,
the language of the picture is mine even before that of
speech. If the products of my creativity are situated in
multi-media, my personality can be captured through my
work in psychoanalytic painting or conceptual analysis
by pictures. It is for this reason, considering
the difficulty of presenting today a complete sampling
of my production, I chose to make available to you
slides illustrating some of my products
concerning pictures.
In submitting my candidacy for the master's program offered
by your faculty, I am especially addressing a double concern
of resource and integration.
Resource: in the light of recommendations from
outside your institution and the information that
brought a first overview conducted among some mem -
bers of your faculty and your program, I think I can expect
from the guidelines provided by your master's program
in visual arts and the versatility of the student
teachers team who participated, a renewed contact with a
multidisciplinary environment of creation and information.
Integration: My autodidact training sometimes limits my
PAGE 88
fields of intervention at the level of union standards applied
in certain circles of research, teaching and animation.
To this end, secured recognition attached
to learning in the framework of programs offered
by your institution would add a new dimension
to my experiences.
Finally let me say that relevant information
in my application that is currently missing in my file
will be handed to you once it is possible to absorb
the delay which is currently due to administrative slowdowns
that we are suffering with difficulty consequently
to the difficulties that beset the labour-management relations in Quebec.
***** (Next page)
not having been able to personally meet Dr. J. G. Smoke
before the deadline for nomination as
advocated by Miss E. Bradley at the time of our
meeting last month (in April Mr Smoke was held up abroad
and upon his return, I had myself made two business trips),
I have a very vague idea of the type of
documents while representing my work, would be adequate concerning
the information that the selection committee formed
to consider nominations wants.
I therefore send you a copy of my resume to help you
frame a little the ‘’character'' (sic). I am adjoining an excerpt from my
progress report of the pilot project of the Ministry of Education in
which I am responsible for the ''training'' at the Department
of Administrative Techniques at the C. E. G. E. P. of St-Jérôme, as
it was presented April 29 at the last conference held by the
Provincial Coordination under the theme of ''Resistance to change’’
and filed since May 5 at the Research Service
of the OC G. E. C. of the Ministry of Education in Quebec, to give you
an idea of my intervention level.
Moreover, as I outlined above, I am sending to you
a carousel of slides numbered 1 to 58, accompanied
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by a text presenting the list and brief details of the works.
Hoping that everything is in order.
Thank you.
Monique Jarry
Mirabel.
----------------------------------------
***** (Bio., Page: 528) (1976)
***** (Before presenting her narrative about categories, I will present here a text
by Monique that I am sure; will give you a more precise understanding of how
she addresses creation and her works. In time, this text preceded slightly the
narrative of her categories:)
Series numbered from 1 to 30
‘’They are ‘’Mandela’s'' created using the techniques of awareness of ‘’soul expression’’.
Each one was analysed psychologically and the double result of this research gave birth
to conceptual psychoanalysis. The mention of the years listed beside each work is the date
of conceptualization of each picture. The latter is considered complete only when it
entails/ enters my conscience, although the painting as a ''painting'' will never again be
retouched after the initial design, it will not therefore be completed sometimes until several
years later.
It will then be re-handled as an ''object''...
This extensive research allows me to generate relevant data about the process of creation
and assimilation - interpretation of the environment through our individual perceptions.
I am currently working on their classification and writing the data.
Taking into account the broadcast media that are currently made available to us,
the technological advancement that we are witnessing, I had no hesitation to ‘‘freeze’’
my creations as long as necessary for research purposes.
PAGE 90
Looking at the cover of a magazine where a picture of a historical monument appears,
one wonders what is the original work? The monument? The photo? The ‘’front page’’?
The magazine its self?
The utilisation of the basic medium of the artistic creation changes, but also changes the use
of the work itself ... by what path the medium becomes the message?
Therefore, this immobilization of my works themselves has never meant in my life of the
past decade a lack of visibility of the works. These pictures were creation and support
to the environment, light shows, environment shows, conferences, pedagogical tools, etc.
I do not attempt to follow or precede the aesthetic concern in which the so-called plastic
arts have engaged themselves in recent decades. I follow the existential concerns of my
time through the means best suited to my expressiveness.
It is in light of this question that I ask Art in which way these pictures can be understood:
OF WHAT HELP CAN THE CREATIVE FUCTION BE TO PERMIT A HUMAN
BEING TO HAVE ACCES TO HIS OWN LIFE ?’’
Series numbered from 31 to 39
These pictures are from a series of thirty plates executed on paper that I prepared myself.
This is a collection of pictures that include some texts.
The literary illustration is not yet completed.
The refrain of the song that takes the place of ex-libris claims
that: ''Papa, Papa,
Life, life,
is the phoenix
of America.''
The theme of this series revolves around the idea that even a poor little sparrow can see
from the air nearly everything that is going on down below ... even without being a great
bird of fire.
The allegory reflects the relationship that my analysis of symbolism found between the
bird and consciousness. 1973
PAGE 91
The sizes of the platelets vary between: 8 ½''X 11''
6 X 8
3 X 4
Series numbered from 46 to 50
The idea of manual engraving intrigues me as such ...
Theme: The witnesses
Simultaneous linocuts printing - monotype. 1973
Series numbered 51 and 52
Model of a story told by photogram. 17 X 22
Theme: America, the Cathedral-woman
''In the so-called primitive matriarchal tribes, it is argued that while controlling society,
women would be more exploited than here...
What will the outcome of this story? I still cannot answer that...
Series numbered series from 53 to 58
This quest for brightness and transparency that has haunted my youth when I was trying to
''manufacture'' colours that would not CHANGE by mixing pigments with varnish, egg whites
and everything that is found in a house, was nearly my Waterloo ...
Resin and plastic!
Started with opaque urethanes as a galaxy without a sun around 1968...:
53. ''men'' moulded in the open air with a density of – 2 pounds
54. ''cakes'' decorated and moulded to resistance with density – 6 pounds
... I came to something around 1972, it was bright, transparent; but I still had to
pour on an opaque picture; covering it ... then in 1973, I found it.
PAGE 92
55. 56. 57. murals created for the altuglas G. P. S. furniture company, Paris France,
to be incorporated into a moulded aquarium without metal frame support. 16''
58. the aquarium in question.
Chemical recipe? – State Secret!!! Nothing is yet perfect for the Quebec climate;
it still cracks at - 30 degrees.
***** (Note: This is the search for light and transparency that led Monique to
tinted glass (stained glass) in 1979. She would say: -''Before arriving at
La Maison de Verre ( 1979, stained glass studio / boutique), I lingered thoughtfully
from time to time before the store windows exhibiting works in stained glass.
When I saw what you did (my associate and myself) that it ''flashed'': your welding
lines were of a refinement and professionalism that was lacking in what I had seen
up to there. What I had seen was a badly finished, a bit coarse, not very aesthetic
as a finished product and then seeing your work, I saw that there was something
beautiful to do with stained glass.''
----------------------------------------
***** (Bio., Page: 531) (1976)
***** (Monique, like many artists, had ''periods'' throughout her work. In the sixties, she
accepted that her painting be called ''psychedelic''. She meant to convey that it was all a
matter of imagination and inner search. That drugs had no connection with the ability to
create (This is part of her collaboration with the police Youth Assistance unit at station
No. 34 in Montreal who sent her subjects (young) hoping that her painting class could help guide them).
In the late sixties, she was elaborating the concept of ''soul expression''. Then in the seventies
(1973 to 1976-77), she formulated ''Psychoanalysis through pictures or conceptual painting.''
Since 1987, she revisited her work, redefined it in terms of religious Sacred Art, and started to
establish the principles of secular Sacred Art. The core of her approach to art has not really
changed since its inception in her early years. The search for the grater Being, communication,
a language to express oneself, evolve, get in touch with oneself and others. Only her definition
of ''language'' has changed through her own evolution, refining the concept of a language by
painting that would encompass as much variables as possible in order to achieve a level of
understanding and knowledge necessary that would be at the height of her personal aspirations
and those of
PAGE 93
her brothers and sisters humans. The following is ultimately a ''formalization'' of the way that
Monique attempts to interpret her ''pictures.'' This text is the introduction to the photo album
of her paintings and dates from 1976. Finally, this ''guide / grid'' (Category) analysis is valid
for all of her work, whatever the period.)
‘’Painting is an art
I have not had time to look into the definition of art as such, my approach to defining life and
welfare demands, of course, a useful orientation to the act and the artistic object, I agree.
If I had to identify my affiliation to aesthetics, the demonstration of plastic theorems such as
the Academy presents them, would play a very small part in terms of my basic concerns.
The quality of my journey into the wide world (under the circumstances for approximately
eighty years, considering that I am a human being) mainly retains my interest, my commitment
and catalysis my energy and my efforts.
My process of initiation, expression and confrontation into the heart of pictorial language,
offers itself as an outlet for my desire to observe, to understand and finally to communicate
with and for myself, my race, my environment and the phenomenon of life.
At least two points are needed to draw a line visible to the observer. Thus, in principle,
to differentiate and evaluate the elements of my perceptual field, I established the practice
of my vision from two different angles of apprehension each one originating from a distinct
appraisal system.
A system for the experiment that I used in the social teaching that my cultural background
gives me. That is to say, this whole definition of existence and life under the principle commonly
called REALITY, which implies a range of spiritual, psychological, emotional, intellectual, physical,
social and economic activities. A system that I call ''directivo-critic'' and which of course carries
a set of organizations, methods and
PAGE 94
languages. I include ‘’verbal’’ language that can also be called ''progressive'' language.
And another system for the experiment which I used different teachings that gave me listening
attentively to autonomous observations of my senses at the contact of stimuli that they receive,
project, exchange, superimpose and complement. The objective ''co-science'' of the wider
world that identifies and defines a whole set of values and actions, energies and powers,
desires, needs and goals, it may be called OBJECTIVATION. This system of experience
of existence is also conducted by a series of organizations, methods and languages.
I include in particular the language of the ‘’picture’’ that I qualify as being a ‘’conceptual’’ language.
Then we can better understand the flow of my thoughts through pictures, medium where
I am speaking on the conceptual mode.
The task is to put together here nearly two hundred important conceptual reflections of my
life over the last 15 years in order of consequences relatively to one and another.
To facilitate the introduction of these pictures - report from a system of objectifying co-(n) science
of perception in that other organized system called reality, I am drawing here a schematic
categorization of the functions of perception that contribute during the production of each of
these pictures.
They then divided into six major functions of reflection:
1 - Existential testimony
practice that assesses self-consciousness that I realize from tangible experiences that come to
me in this part of my life that evolved within the framework and modes of ''reality''.
2 – Analytical objectifying reflection or re-conditioner:
practice that consists of observing on one part a specific incident (event, feeling, behaviour, etc..)
operating in the ''reality'' system and who, while is of concern to my environment does not
necessarily directly affected the evolution of my own existence, therefore art witness of its century;
second, it is the practice of assessing this specific incidence in the light of the system'' of
‘’objectifying co-(n)- science'', therefore art reflecting on its century;
finally, a practice by which I auto-condition myself to enjoy in an ever more tangible way
this wonderful journey into the wide world that I chose to carry through ''all'' of this
PAGE 95
sensitive vehicle permeable and influent that is the human mammal, therefore art ascetic of life.
3 – The organigram-condenser:
practice that expresses perceptions, concerns, feelings and impressions in the form of organic
structure which highlights the chain of consequences that connects and serves to clarify concepts
that seek expression in the tangle of different functions of perception.
4 - The Exorcist:
practice that aims to liberate objectifying thought of urgent and misidentified preoccupations
that subjugates and hinders its free operation.
5 - conceptogram:
practice that promotes the objectual emergence and articulation of a concept which is
clearly identified and thus the globality of its structure gives an imprescriptibly of autonomy.
6 - the corollary:
practice to prove the statement of a conceptogram by applying its premises to a situation
other or more specific than that under which the initial conceptogram was born.
It is, in sum, here, the picture/reportage’s that have formed spontaneously or under the impulse
of my will for clarification all along my journey through the vast world of existence. I am aware
that the drafting style that I used to write down my stories is a form of analytic shorthand of
perception. As such therefore, to reach a more common language, each picture requires at
least some explanation. This is the literary translation of this initiation that I am working on
right now, when my apprenticeship is ended; I will enter the phase of companionship.
Monique Jarry
Laurentides, Quebec 1976
----------------------------------------
***** (Bio, Page: 536) (1977)
***** (From a notebook: collection of writings on art and human behaviour)
PAGE 96
***** (March 14 to April 15, 1977)
withdrawal promiscuity Utopia
1: withdrawal
like the tortoise
it shelters itself in himself
and as its natural shell protects and insulates the reptile
from the storm, of danger, immediate cataclysm
as withdrawal protects the human mammal
1 – from unexpected attacks of destiny
2 – of the science of experience
3 - from individual failure and social rejection,
from the responsibility of choice and of selection
4 – from the thunder and the storm
5 – from shock and lightening
from lightening and light
6 – from the sun and light
7 – from combat and movement
8 – from death and love alike
he resists and retreats to suffer
‘’with honour like a man’’ as it is said
while the passive half of his soul
dream helplessly of flying to the countries of freedom,
yet chained here
by the other active half of itself
which relentlessly focuses its pure energy in the
reformulation of his protest against the forces
of adversity, subdued by the enemy
as a man destroyed by the
arrogance and the mystery of
the snake.
intelligence that apprehends
the possible ravages of pain
yield to the assaults of a tradition
called conservation
PAGE 97
that develops at each step of a certain cultural
approach.
The civilized soul abandoned to intellectualize
insecurity
reflects itself in a pyrite mirror
where the collective neurosis claims to qualify itself of conscience
and the time of the life cycle of the retirees of this world
crumbles in infertile fantasies
even when his nose remaining, in short,
of an insipid naïve and ignorant virginity, cries the
deficiency here of fragrances of countries of
freedom, knowing nothing of their
structure and even of their tangible
existence.
and the turtle remains isolated
in itself for fear of thunder
without knowing that above it
the sun reappeared and is already drying
the last reserves of fresh water
left by the rain.
Turtles live for hundreds of years
their chance to glimpse a rainbow
are many ...
and secondly, their stomachs bears
the ingestion of salt water ...
thus the bad is lesser.
Who indeed would have feared
that this reptile of apocalyptic origins
would have sunk in aberration
to the point to choose to protect
itself from a passing danger
at the price of a mortal risk!
there can be no question about this
since these animals, we are told,
are not endowed with intelligence ...
11 promiscuity
PAGE 98
111 Utopia
14th of march 77
A)
These days
my thoughts could be summarized
as follows:
1 -''I was not born
to maintain the objects
I bought with the money
earned by another''
11 -''I was not born
to purchase items I need
with the money earned by another''
And these two sentences
seem to me to summarize
much
of the difficulty of living
that many of
my human brothers and sisters
feel
in these days
in these lands.
B)
Also observing and analysing
all the paintings that are currently
started around me
one thing strikes me
before (mostly) this double-woman ***** (canvas no. 1976-010, Album 1)
that is liberating herself from a herself
1
‘’This archetype of splitting
was born of a first feeling
of a new being, regenerated, that follows
PAGE 99
the decreased being, which was
physically, psychologically
and morally sick''
11
''emerged in enthusiasm
this archetype has stagnated, unfinished
during a period of approximately
four months
until now
where enthusiasm towards her
seems reborn in me''
111
‘’This period of stagnation of the work
seems to correspond to a specific cycle
of evolution''
1V
''I know she is reborn by a (the work)
energy accumulated in
great suffering,
suffering that has intensified since
one month to the point of submerging
almost entirely any other concern''
V
''I re-take (re-feel) today this theme
of liberation driven by a concern
of a new scope, less anecdotal
and more universal.
So: the liberation extends to a
New level of intervention
i.e. : Originally, I was freeing myself from my
personal incapacity to exercise my free
arbiter in and on my life; disability caused
by the inferior state (dependency) to which a car accident
had reduced me.
Today, I talk about my liberation of a
PAGE 100
social disability to exercise my free arbiter
in a concrete way in and on my life; disability
caused by the state of inferiority
and dependence which the rules and structures
of my social environment had
reduced me''
V1
''We could say on the analysis of this
painting (when finished) that its interpretation
can occur at two levels, of course ...
BUT, we can also consider:
if we reconstruct the following evolutionary
cycle:
1 - disease
2 - recovery of health
3 - integration into community life
4 - suffering
5 - (assessment, revolt, rejection) liberation
V11
''Here arises a new question-
hypothesis:
pain requires
for the appearance of autonomy
an experience
health
suffering is a positive action
beneficial and is
(much less) not within the reach of the organism
to the extent
were the diseased of the organism
lacks the means to inform itself,
evaluate and
respond with independents
and autonomy.
V111
PAGE 101
''It is very annoying that
when suffering,
drives us to nervous exasperation,
bringing us to finally to contest the education we gained,
does this bring us to systematically repress and control our
contestations or at least to despise them
trying to minimize the
value and attempting to destroy
the result of a long process of the evolution of health’’.
1X
''If some hypothesis stated here
had any objectifying value
it would be to say how much acquired education,
this strong concentrated summary
our culture (or civilization) could
be regarded as a visible
and exterior symptom outside of a strange state
of health (the word used as a
general descriptive term of THE STATE of a being without
an evaluative accounting of well-being or
ill-being) ...
X
Finally in my approach to
finding myself, of my thoughts
and my needs, how much, oh how much
little time and energy to identify ‘’which of
my thoughts are mine and which of my
needs are mine''
and how much, oh how much little time
and energy does there remain to ''think'' and live
Life without my thoughts and my needs!!!
X1
Alas! Alas!
X11
PAGE 102
Who else would claim, realising that in the
current conditions of our culture,
in nature and in the amplitude of such a
challenge to happiness, to balance, to objectification,
to knowledge or simply to
the absolute, would say some art historians,
who else would claim, knowing all of this,
that artists have difficult character!
C)
When I said in speaking of my work: ''the work
of my life ...'' I did not realize that
‘’works-of-life'' we cannot produce
more than one as we only
have one life ...
as in any other field, it is
not expected that it will be transmissible
before really taking form and life...
it's a bit like saying that neither luck,
neither wealth, nor power can prevent
the beginning of the active birth
of such a work corresponds no more or no less
to the end of the life of its author.
--------------------
The end of March 77
All the characters I draw
could be subdivided into at least two
broad categories by the shape and the movement they
expresses.
Some are graceful, balanced, elegant, voluptuous
or tender, etc. ...
Others are inflexible, disjointed, cold, restrained,
worrying, as entangled or unbalanced, etc. ...
I have no value judgments to make on this,
in each category of more and of less excellent.
In each group the picture produced can be ingenuous,
PAGE 103
cute, sensing or dull, deep or
superficial, violent, visionary, apocalyptic, mystical
etc. ...
They may be humans as we can see them
versus humans as they may see themselves...
--------------------
(Continuing in the notebook, bio., Page: 551)
Why does Moles speaks of the equality of all
consumers to the right to ''Beauty''?
Is beauty the function of art in
society? and the decorative art, and architecture,
fashion, and leisure time?
Probably he is basing his certainty
and insurance on something that
escapes me! ! ! ! ? ? ?
ART - leisure of the gods and the rich
art – leisure for all
this is the enigma
when classical art was only the leisure of the rich,
they probably related to the
immersion into beauty
and that is what they want to transmit to us today
now that the social situation pushes them to democratize
their fortune.
But in those days for us
the lack of art was not perceived as a lack of
beauty, but of meaning; of life, of god, of soul,
of truth, of cosmic relations, of education and
of message. We did not COVET
castles as a content. Everyone knows that the air and sun
of vast plains is better for the heart and body, that the games
PAGE 104
of love are more tender and more passionate in the fields than in the
canopy beds. We coveted the castles as chalices containing contents
of life, the very substance of life, of knowledge and conscious love.
Naive surely but we were expecting ‘’Lycaniôn’’.
Moles p. 191 on ‘’the art of sound: creation and synthesis’’
...''There is no music in nature: all
music is thus synthetic''? ? ?
Question to P. Vaillancourt: ''What is a
natural sound (…or of the affective Forms …, Moles p. 191)?
Question to P. Vaillancourt: what will become of
arm and ear composers
like him?
why did they make him the
laureate? at Concordia for this
traditional and romantic melody?
unless the jury has considered
the overall performance of all the
candidates as a mere shovelled
psychic un-roughing
for beginners
and for beginners only?
with no absolute existence
value in the world of
MUSIC?? what??
Why does A. Moles whenever he speaks of
painting or music (classical?)
produced from inspiration and the execution
of a human author, by hand,
while devaluing it in its popular
and contemporary utility. (Inapt in filing
real consumer needs) always adds at the
same time the concept of '' GRANDEUR'' of the work in question
(almost as if it was in bad taste for that matter);
but what have they that is so great
our human works that are so unique and fragile. Of what
grandeur is he talking about.
cf. p. 193, p. xx (for painting??)
--------------------
PAGE 105
15th of April 77
Notes: written about the genesis of art,
the chapter on the need to say our message to the cosmos
by drawing on the beach with a finger or a branch
(where is the difference exactly; specify)
a few cabalistic signs, with the aware SATISFACTION
that the tide will erase the message
visually but not virtually
versus: Art and Computer A. Moles Casterman
p. 183 Text of Max Bense
--------------------
and the woman said to the modern art critic:
‘’I am the container’’
‘’only the content fascinates me’’
and I say this because my curiosity and my love
surpasses my will to become
my narcissism.
--------------------
Note: compare the text of Max Bense
with the said Christian square in ‘’Christ’’ Ideas,
historicity of Christ,
Container-content
Hypothesis: p. 183 Moles ''provide a material disposition to
the machine (to make babies, to the race, to make
life) like and empty mould to fill, as a proposal
of the sequence of our actions that will make real and hypothesis
on the creator mechanism, to a given syntactic structure''
and if the machine itself began, in the long run, to learn
to order itself the data of these sequences proposals
and translate, not strictly an hypothesis on the mechanism of the creator,
but a hypothesis as such
PAGE 106
or simply an hypothesis of ‘’its’’ own mechanism as a
creator ....
a product that combines content and container? ? ?
***** (End of the notebook.)
----------------------------------------
***** (Bio., Page: 561) (1976)
***** (Clarification: the first line of the next text are the titles of four of her paintings:
No.: 1968-005, (1968-025, 1969-010), 1973-220, ref. to album 1)
Ref: conversation with Holy
Topic: ‘’talking to yourself’’
... The fighter, the anguish of America, the man-who-walks,
... ... All this was before I
master spoken language ...
ideas skirted across the conceptual language
of pictures and this language contained in itself
the expressive satisfaction of awareness.
the spoken word, LANGUAGE also has in itself
the expressive satisfaction of understanding
however
while the deep satisfaction is not tainted by any
blame (I mean directive: forget all those who want to
discourage us from the ''line''). That is to say that when the public
does not understand the approach of the artist-creator, use
is that he hit's his chest and never impute
absolutely never this inconvenience to the author. The farther
he goes, the more he will be respected, sometimes
even loved (but that is rarer; finally, let us not ask
for too much)
this same deep satisfaction if it originates
Note: art as an outlet to the solitary intellect.
From a spoken-creation will be vitiated,
soiled, mutilated, slandered, scorned even
because the verbal approaches that astonish or surprise
PAGE 107
the public, which escape
understanding, or even more
simply: the approaches that are accessible to him but whose origin, the finality
or the pertinence escapes the immediate consciousness
of the public
are criticized, condemned
. at best in a private club and in principle
favourable to the transmitter-individual, our creator will be
tolerated (as we sometimes tolerates a tendency to
alcoholism or violence from a loved one)
. usually the verbal-creator, although
one appreciates the value of his works and that it is
NORMALY recognizing that we use and
exploit his ''findings'', all
NORMAL public (near or far) will tell him clearly
to retire and to ‘’make way for others’’*
* Which means in subtle as in clear: ''Listen with a
nodding approval or participate
in the general ''entertainment'', entertainment that can
vary between the ‘’cheap’’ honey of Pierre Lalonde,
quality honey of Michel Fugain and the incoherence
of amateurs that attack with emphasis
at a level of intervention far more ''higher'' but
without any basic knowledge of the structure
or of thought, nor of the structure of the LANGUAGE itself:
entertainment for intellectual people,
deep and intelligent! !
And there is nothing to do,
for if in the emergence of a ''beautiful pass'' that is
is in danger of being drowned by the aggressiveness of the cacophony of
the most unconscious, the verbal artist attempts to introduce himself
to restore to this beautiful pass all its fullness,
its origins, its purposes, its implications, its corollaries,
etc., its own unique whole existence, what!,
he will aggressively and strongly urged by the transmitter-speaker
of the moment that he should be silent or suffer the PENALTY THAT
HE WILL LOOSE HIS IDEA!!!
PAGE 108
If for the beauty of the gesture, the verbal artist accepts
the injunction, he will then have the ''pleasure'' to attend
as an accomplice auditor (under duress,
its his only excuse) to a very long and
very lush (sometimes ...) diatribe without a
really proved accurate objective, diatribe during
which in majority (there are exceptions for
the apprentice artist who self-criticises and draws tangible
Note: artist = manipulator with a structure
of thought and the structure of at least one language.
Benefit from its leas expression), diatribe
in which therefore, in majority, from speaker-transmitter
at that time will have finally contented himself by making
a descriptive display of what he ALREADY knew
before even beginning to transmit,
and this in a
subjective and so little explained causal chain that in short
is so null in the public that they cannot gain
any lasting benefit, nor even the speaker
himself. Words, words, words!!!
It is how to lack so much human contacts
without realizing that
one appreciates to the highest point the
least, even the impersonal pushing’s
in the metro ...
And even if this outrage of
‘’front vanity’’ (1)
(1) Ref. The Bible
or even the bored and flat silence
that is threatening a parlour, everyone
seems to believe that this is better than
hearing a real verbal creation.
Finally, what to do, it has been the consecrated way
for generations and generations!
What would Pavlov think?
What will happen to the future adult society
that is constituted by the few privileged offspring
of today
PAGE 109
that can ''apprentice''
more freely the structure of spoken languages
at the same time as the structure of
their own thoughts because finally, for those
rare privileged the all powerful stentorian voice
(in size, not in wisdom)
does not constantly hit on them on their first
learning of expressivity in drowning them with
‘’I know better than you’’, ''I know you better
that yourself because I've knitted you ...'', etc. ...
etc. ... well anything meaning
in form or in substance: ''Shut up, I
am the biggest, so the louder you speak
later (understood: by silencing the
younger) when you will be in turn
the oldest'' (it is easy to understand the success
of the advertisement by Lottery Quebec:
''Tomorrow, it will be your turn!''
This new generation will perhaps finally
Know how to speak and listen,
this will be a velvety pleasure to hear
for the professional verbal-creator, the artist.
Perhaps this future society will be
more qualitative in its selectivity!!!
----------------------------------------
***** (Bio., Page: 584) (1977)
''... Now: I speak and I express
‘’still a little more time'': and I will get up and it will be expression
and ''a little more time'': and I will walk and it will be
expression
and ''a little more time'': I will express and it will be creation.
I am arriving at the threshold of my active life, I am reaching the age where
it is our turn.
PAGE 110
It's strange even for me
this way that I now have to use the time and
energy normally devoted to the creative action generally
generator of consumer-art-objects
to write these thoughts that are not for any practical purpose,
or at least do not have the immediate appearance,
of public-consumer-art-objects;
writing, painting, composing, etc ... to create, it is
to some extent to be ready to compromise oneself not only
internally but also in a tangible and
sustainable way (leave witnesses of our actions
and thoughts behind us) - (Note: discourse and verbal-teaching
are also tangible but their penetration length, has in the
other a minimum because will remain to be
witness of our acts and thoughts that of which of
the globality of the discourse expressed by the speaker
would have been recorded in the immediacy
of the word heard.
This can be used by the apprentices wishing to come to
really, truly and fully compromise himself
as excellent warm up exercise
when he feels dawning in him insistently the desire and
the mater of a deeper commitment, but when
he still feels shy, insecure, rough, not
swollen enough with sap or decision, etc ...
speech of course still protects the back of the
speaker, this may appear useful in
a certain stage of evolution
However it renders very little and very poor justice
to the expresser that sows, that sows, that sows but
with very little seeds to get to the desired target,
goals that vary according to the intention of the expresser and the
degree of precision he wishes; certain Professor will desire to focus on:
memory, or understanding, or… some artist: the heart,
or the soul, or… some lovers: ...or ...
In the tangible compromission (right word???)
of the performed work
also exists levels of intervention
each corresponding for the creator
to a degree and specific nature of commitment
PAGE 111
Some examples:
talking about the general (society, families, religions, love
science, etc.)
at the anecdotal level
talking about the particular (story, joy, pain, distress
love, hope, hesitation, etc. ...)
at the anecdotal level
talking about the general at the universal level
talking about the particular at the universal level
the difference between the levels, sometimes subtle and difficult
to perceive (although other times enlightening)
may of course depend to a degree on the
degree of mastery of the author
but especially and essentially (essence) on the degree of commitment
of the latter.''
----------------------------------------
***** (Bio., page 601) (1977)
''…My thoughts led me to an approach and a philosophy of life
that attracts and nurtures those who are seeking themselves. My painting
makes those who know it vibrate. With such a balance in these
three levels of productivity, I think I
should be able to without too much risk for my
balance my personal economy stop being a colony
and accede to my independence and my autonomy. My
different states of services have not acquired me ''recognition''
to date but I think it applies to any colony
before the time of its actual independence. Only one
problem remains difficult. No services or
products coming from each of my three ''industry'' is
administered in a way to ensure me full material security ...
...
PAGE 112
The problem is not that I think that my products and services
do not meet market demand.
If you only knew how much time, energy and money
each and everyone spent to try to as best
to appropriate themselves my child! If you only knew how my ideas
on life, the structure of thought, individual and group needs,
self-expression, the need and role of creating, the meaning of
life, the role of death, of childhood, of old age, the
meaning of war, of couples, of the family, etc. ... if you only knew
how my ideas raise and reflect
exactly the concerns of my contemporaries.
If you knew how the visual, psychological and philosophical
Impact of my painting is fast and general. From the first contact they
raises questions and reactions. They leave no one indifferent.
With a simple and appropriate introduction almost everybody
understands it, finds themselves in it. I say ''almost everyone'',
because of course, here I exclude the purely intellectual brain
and the Academy because right now they appear quite often
more interested in plastic research of a
spatial and aesthetics organisation, etc ... etc ... while I especially put
emphasis on nature and role of the creative process
in the process of human aiming towards full development
of his global becoming. But finally, the share of the market represented
by the Academy and its fans is still overall very, very small
compared with the overall market represented at this time
by those for whom ''TO EXPRES THEMSELVES'' now has a
intrinsic recognized value.
So my products and my works correspond directly to
specific needs of the market. The market consumes and uses
them indeed. How come that I do not even have the guarantee and
the enjoyment of a minimum physical security? However, I am not
in business with myself in life since only yesterday!
It has been since the age of eleven that I participate and produce, being
held responsible for myself and my actions both physically and
morally. With my looks, my temperament,
my intelligence, how is it that you may ask that
I have not thought about, since all this time, to orient myself
differently? I've thought about it. But I still believe that the
PAGE 113
areas on which I have and still am devoting my actions
and my energy REMAIN those that correspond
the best to what I want to be in my life on earth
as a human female mammal.''
----------------------------------------
***** (Bio., Page: 617) (1977)
...''It's what’s in dancing
that permits you to enter hole, body and belongings,
with your sole and your problem’s (anxiety)
and come out without forgetting
and leave your anxieties behind.
In painting, it’s soul expression.
Simplicity is not a virtue
but a need
not an attitude
but a need
not a behaviour
but a need.''
Monique Jarry
----------------------------------------
***** (Bio., page 650) (1977)
***** (Oct. - Nov. - December 1977: Texts, reflections and others, in a notebook.)
***** (First text)
Painting
Faces
youth - maturity
René Lévesque
+ the Jesuit economist at the
University of Montreal.
PAGE 114
+? ?
''If all the faces around us
had this beauty
there would be no
necessity for the painter to
parody them to enhance
their expression… I
could then perhaps
linger to paint
more abstract concepts ...!!
----------------------------------------
***** (Second text)
I must paint what
I've seen.
My version of the ten
commandments.
Highlighting the im -
pact of the contradiction
between what we were told
and what I have seen for myself
what we do...
------------
what I saw?
‘’ALL’’ of the causes are
infinitely deep and moving.
And yet ... nobody
can be a rabbit, jackal, weasel,
eagle, wolf and lion all at once!
what to do? What can having seen
everything be used for?
What would I think?
----------
PAGE 115
No one here is protected
by the purity
of his intentions
his knowledge
his personal strength
his public forces
or anything else
or all of it together
Martin Luther King...
----------
And it is in the twentieth century
that this is happening.
----------
And it is happening everywhere
as much in the highly
evolved ‘’Yankee’’
than to those closer to nature
Amin Dada’s son
----------
And of course, it is not accidental
finally, it's quite obvious!
----------
I would not say: this is our times
nor this is our culture,
I would say: this is our nature,
this is our world.
----------------------------------------
PAGE 116
***** (Bio., Page: 678) (1978)
October 9th 77
During a conversation with 3 of
Pierre’s students, Marie-France and Pierre himself on
times that are changing a lot in these decades:
abstract art: the art of those who still sleep
in pyjamas.
----------------------------------------
***** (Bio., Page: 705) (1978)
***** (Short text in a drawing book)
***** (Early 1978)
''I have nothing
else to paint
except happiness
and sorrow,
love and
violence,
courage and
lies,
audacity and
insecurity,
the absolute
and poverty,
faith and
murder,
generosity and
solitude,
life and death.''
----------------------------------------
PAGE 117
***** (Bio., Page: 706) (February 27, 1978)
***** (From a text in which Monique speaks of herself and her relation to art and language.
Pierre is her X spouse of the time: Spring 1973 to fall 1978.)
''... I observe a lot and I perceive a lot,
transmit and extrapolate, that is essentially a
acceptable definition of ''art''.
My inability to communicate (which is
something else) did indeed constitute one of
the most powerful elements that made it so that I have spent
such a great mass of my psychic energy
to creation between the age of 15 to 25 years old.
What can be more useful to an apprentice-artist
than being unable TO USE anything of the resources
of the immediate environment? The only thing left to do
is to create from the elements of this environment
and oneself.
Youth that contests the coldness and ‘’inwallment’’
of our time and of our civilisation of course are crazy about
my work. It is very easy to be their
bow-head. Who better than I has so much interest in vomiting
incommunicability and to describe it and track it
with pictures in all its facets… with the
power of violence and ... the fire of
rebellion or… despair?
***** (Next page)
When I was 15 , we sought the
works of ''existentialists'': the contemptuous desperate
and jaded, the poets of ''oblivion''.
When I was 25, those 15 years old were searching
for the angry poets, artists of revolt. I
fitted ''very well'' in there until about 1973.
But since then my desire has changed. When I look
at the 5 year old children of the first hippie generation,
PAGE 118
I also think that their desires in 10 years will
be very different.
The time of the counter-culture is passed
(the counter-choices, the anti-choices, like saying
that all is hidden, to do all that is forbidden)
Already around the world, we can feel that
protest has lost its true revolutionary meaning,
it caries in itself its own death
because more and more, everywhere dispute degenerates
into simple fishwife arguments.
While the older ones, the youth aged 35 think that
they are of the left because they are bent on demolishing
and denouncing all institutions whatsoever,
the real young, their children, their students are quietly
building their reality in the image of their
needs putting everything all together in the same bag.
The seniors; whether they are for or against the system,
in the eyes of the youth, these elders
remain ''half-wits'' hanging on to
the stories-of-systems. And as for them
***** (Next page)
it matters little to them since in their eyes the great
interest in life, is to live.
An as for me, these games do not distract me
any more (at least, less and less) since I
have assuaged my grief and my revolt and that to
contest without despair, is after all very tiring and
ridiculous.
My art has gradually become my profession and
has become less confused (much) less confused with ''a
vocation''.
It is accepted that we do not live to work, but
we work to live. Still more must we
recognize the folly that would be ''working INSTEAD
of living''!
Thus the focus of course is going since then, for me,
towards living. And believe me the pleasure of living offers
***** (Next : Image number 1971-060.)
From page 81 to page 118.
PAGE 81
exactly. This is the time that I had to grant you at this time.
It's your choice. As for me, of course I wish you, and
from the bottom of my heart, all the luck in the world with your vision of the world.
P. S. I read your book. I will limit myself by letter and from now until
I have the opportunity to see you
in person to let you know that your book found me in a state of some
surprise given the mode of your discourse of the last few years.
I did not expect to read you in a work, ‘’a poetic discourse’’
you that seems to venerate a form of discourse more axed
on ...''theses''…remark that you dabbled a lot in the poetic
form at age sixteen…***** (End of the note.)
***** (Next page)
... All specialization is developed in a certain selectivity
where the most effective has an advantage over the less. In this sense
... blah, blah, blah, my painting excluded in its approach to power
the approaches of gestural paintings, plastic,
etc ... without a prior prejudice to their absolute value as
such ... however and here intervenes the incidence in
the role of art in this new law to art that is vested to
the general public by the new structure and new
media of communication, given to our society.
In what we call an ''art school'', impressionism,
dadaism, surrealism, cubism and so on ...
within the school itself, between the members who formed it
was being established an under or a sub-language, language that
allowed the initiate to enjoy therein the produced works,
much more than could ever
enjoy the outdoor spectators or casual viewer.
It is this privileged communication, which truly created
The ''movement.'' It gave the group
a force, a new power from which
the group, the whole ‘’movement’’ could
go and conquer a wider circle:
the rest of the social elite group, i.e. the
rest of those to whom the fresh information
was susceptible to reach. The individuals
who possessed the means to OFFER
PAGE 82
fresh information (tea parlours, literary magazines, etc..)
hallowed themselves immediately with a greatly envied prestige.
***** (Next page)
This new group of inductees then formed
of all the so-called social elite,
acquired itself a strength and a
new power (new blood!). Interpreting in
its way to the new vision of these artists
by creating new vogues, new frenzies,
new fashions, due to their financial,
political and economic situation. They could
then let filter through their actions and their politics
they're newly gained influence.
Influence that could, by this mean, reach
the ears of the public.
Either the general public was learning to see
and raise their family gradually in this
elephantine novelty which was called
skyscrapers without even hardly knowing about
the existence of a Mondrian.
Either the general public learned
to know the name of Picasso almost as
much as that of Champlain, de Maisonneuve
or New York without knowledge
what so ever in his role and his place in the
history of art.
Either he incorporated into his daily life
concepts reflecting opinions and
judgments which he ignored the origin
***** (Next)
and the scope – witness, the popular expression
with a very specific meaning: Mad as Braque.
Today, where the first instance, after
the artist himself, who may receive information is
PAGE 83
(or at least can and tends
increasingly to be)
the general public itself
It is WITH the greater public itself that
the artist creates schools, create movements
and acquire power and strength.
In common with the general public the artist
will develop and use this ‘’over-language’’
which allows insiders to enjoy the most
deeply as possible the works produced there.
To do this, openly and in public,
the artist must announce the colour of
his new and particular language:
openly and directly with the public
he will develop word games and mind games
that only the insiders can understand.
As previously among
intellectuals - even the creator had to select
the desired and get elected by them
***** (Next page)
excluding disruptive dissent
of the inner sanctum of the ‘’elected’’ to be able
to create school and movement; it is today
in mass of the great
public that the artist-creator will establish
the brotherhood of his peers and that to
the exclusion of disruptive dissidents
and their vision. Two art lovers trained in this way
possibly would not have taste for the same works
or the same artists. Two artists
will be able not only to elaborate differently
on art but even in a
quite divergent way this time in the sight
and knowledge of the general public.
Differences and misunderstandings are
visible to more people are not
as such a new phenomenon. It would
PAGE 84
suffice on this subject to browse in old
magazines or chronicles of arts and letters to
remember the animosities and miscommunications
of yesteryear. Suffice it to read a few
samples of passed correspondences
exchanged between two artists or two writers
that we much appreciated
***** (Next page)
one and the other and to hear them insult,
ridicules and accuse each other
of not being in the loop, to realise ...
Or again it would suffice you to see again with
pleasure a former classmate to
realize how much you regret that life
has deprived you of his presence, but that a
good bottle emptied together in the soft
envelope of your memories recalls
to your memory how you loved to play
hockey together and talk about girls, but
also how your likes and dislikes
did not go to the same authors.
These differences and the incommunicability’s
do not all originate from rivalries and jealousies
or again of narrow-mindedness and futile
stubbornness; often their root are
deeper, as deep as the need to
kill the lamb: it is to eat it
and live and not by hate, or even fear, or to destroy it.
There are some who are happy anywhere
as long as the air is fresh and there is a bright sun. There
are others who are happy even if it rains
two hundred days a year provided they live
***** (Next page)
PAGE 85
in the home that they built themselves, decorated
and loved. Who is wrong, who is right? It depends
in which of the two groups one belongs to.
It is about the same in the different schools of thought
in art as elsewhere. We expect of those
that we meet that they will talk to us about what they
are living, that they expose to us their universe and that they
will make us appreciate it. Among the richer universes,
we will often opt for the one that
the author has had the most success in making us love,
the one who speaks the most to our mind, which will
most make dream our heart, that will
permit us the most to enhance ourselves, to
grow. We will maybe appreciate the others
but with an admiration
mark by respect rather than love and enthusiasm.
The heart needs to rise.
Humans need to live and to have a feeling
of greatness, full of vibrations, of possibilities.
----------------------------------------
***** (Bio., Page: 524) (1976)
***** (May 10th , 1976, Monique made a request to Concordia University to be
accepted into the program of ''Masters in Fine Arts.'' Despite all her skills and
references to support this, she was refused. She told me that she had cried for
two days of anger, frustration and sorrow. The reason for the refusal is that at
the time the faculty of ‘’Fine Arts’’ was completely ‘’dominated’’ by the ‘’Abstract’’
movement and that Monique was ‘’figurative and a colourist’’. As required in the
presentation of her request, here is the text that Monique attached to her
application for admission.)
May 10th , 1976
Faculty of Fine Arts
Graduate Program
Sir George Williams University and Loyola of Montreal
PAGE 86
To whom it may concern,
To introduce myself and present the reasons pertaining to
my application to the program Art Studio offered by
your faculty, I include this document in my file.
At the age of eleven, I began to meet my needs
by selling arts and crafts. All the objects that I created
were exclusive.
I really began to paint in 1959. I devoted myself to
this activity until the day I could have adequate
equipment to address sculpture. At least, that is what
I thought then. The movement and the quality of colour
and brightness fascinated me. I also wrote
poetic prose with my friends, we interpret these works in all
‘’the yards and the cellars’’ around, reciting and singing them.
In 1961, I wrote an essay. This work was my first
overt social criticism. From that day, I apprehended art in
terms of a witness-products of expression. My friends and I
had created the theatre ''of the wolves'' that was established
in the ally Louis Hemon.
In painting, first fed by resources of the environment,
after having tried the traditional, stylisation and abstract,
then of a ''pop'' tainted by the influence of the ready-made,
it was only in 1964 that I suddenly discovered the meaning of
the deep commitment that binds the creator-painter to his work.
I had a glimpsed at the rich resources of apprehension and analysis
that offered expression. Art seemed to bind me to my quest
of understanding and consciousness. Creating could be more
than a mind-game. Creating was becoming a conceptual tool
of objectification of perceptions. Creating, a possible approach to
life.
‘’Soul expression’’ thus became an approach, a movement, school
and technique. It is with this approach that I apprehended
the lines of force and influence of our contemporary society.
It is with the help of this participating learning technique
that I embarked in the mastery of the instruments of
PAGE 87
communication and information of our time.
***** (Next page)
My path is in the process of a generation
which tends towards versatility and adaptability, aware that
the hour has struck to find the deeper meaning of life and the
mastery of the environment.
I was able to gain experience in this world by working,
starting in 1966, at the level of practical education and training
in various sectors, leisure, enhancing, delinquent youth,
institutionalized education, etc. ...
I am a creator and designer.
As the path of my thinking is primarily conceptual,
the language of the picture is mine even before that of
speech. If the products of my creativity are situated in
multi-media, my personality can be captured through my
work in psychoanalytic painting or conceptual analysis
by pictures. It is for this reason, considering
the difficulty of presenting today a complete sampling
of my production, I chose to make available to you
slides illustrating some of my products
concerning pictures.
In submitting my candidacy for the master's program offered
by your faculty, I am especially addressing a double concern
of resource and integration.
Resource: in the light of recommendations from
outside your institution and the information that
brought a first overview conducted among some mem -
bers of your faculty and your program, I think I can expect
from the guidelines provided by your master's program
in visual arts and the versatility of the student
teachers team who participated, a renewed contact with a
multidisciplinary environment of creation and information.
Integration: My autodidact training sometimes limits my
PAGE 88
fields of intervention at the level of union standards applied
in certain circles of research, teaching and animation.
To this end, secured recognition attached
to learning in the framework of programs offered
by your institution would add a new dimension
to my experiences.
Finally let me say that relevant information
in my application that is currently missing in my file
will be handed to you once it is possible to absorb
the delay which is currently due to administrative slowdowns
that we are suffering with difficulty consequently
to the difficulties that beset the labour-management relations in Quebec.
***** (Next page)
not having been able to personally meet Dr. J. G. Smoke
before the deadline for nomination as
advocated by Miss E. Bradley at the time of our
meeting last month (in April Mr Smoke was held up abroad
and upon his return, I had myself made two business trips),
I have a very vague idea of the type of
documents while representing my work, would be adequate concerning
the information that the selection committee formed
to consider nominations wants.
I therefore send you a copy of my resume to help you
frame a little the ‘’character'' (sic). I am adjoining an excerpt from my
progress report of the pilot project of the Ministry of Education in
which I am responsible for the ''training'' at the Department
of Administrative Techniques at the C. E. G. E. P. of St-Jérôme, as
it was presented April 29 at the last conference held by the
Provincial Coordination under the theme of ''Resistance to change’’
and filed since May 5 at the Research Service
of the OC G. E. C. of the Ministry of Education in Quebec, to give you
an idea of my intervention level.
Moreover, as I outlined above, I am sending to you
a carousel of slides numbered 1 to 58, accompanied
PAGE 89
by a text presenting the list and brief details of the works.
Hoping that everything is in order.
Thank you.
Monique Jarry
Mirabel.
----------------------------------------
***** (Bio., Page: 528) (1976)
***** (Before presenting her narrative about categories, I will present here a text
by Monique that I am sure; will give you a more precise understanding of how
she addresses creation and her works. In time, this text preceded slightly the
narrative of her categories:)
Series numbered from 1 to 30
‘’They are ‘’Mandela’s'' created using the techniques of awareness of ‘’soul expression’’.
Each one was analysed psychologically and the double result of this research gave birth
to conceptual psychoanalysis. The mention of the years listed beside each work is the date
of conceptualization of each picture. The latter is considered complete only when it
entails/ enters my conscience, although the painting as a ''painting'' will never again be
retouched after the initial design, it will not therefore be completed sometimes until several
years later.
It will then be re-handled as an ''object''...
This extensive research allows me to generate relevant data about the process of creation
and assimilation - interpretation of the environment through our individual perceptions.
I am currently working on their classification and writing the data.
Taking into account the broadcast media that are currently made available to us,
the technological advancement that we are witnessing, I had no hesitation to ‘‘freeze’’
my creations as long as necessary for research purposes.
PAGE 90
Looking at the cover of a magazine where a picture of a historical monument appears,
one wonders what is the original work? The monument? The photo? The ‘’front page’’?
The magazine its self?
The utilisation of the basic medium of the artistic creation changes, but also changes the use
of the work itself ... by what path the medium becomes the message?
Therefore, this immobilization of my works themselves has never meant in my life of the
past decade a lack of visibility of the works. These pictures were creation and support
to the environment, light shows, environment shows, conferences, pedagogical tools, etc.
I do not attempt to follow or precede the aesthetic concern in which the so-called plastic
arts have engaged themselves in recent decades. I follow the existential concerns of my
time through the means best suited to my expressiveness.
It is in light of this question that I ask Art in which way these pictures can be understood:
OF WHAT HELP CAN THE CREATIVE FUCTION BE TO PERMIT A HUMAN
BEING TO HAVE ACCES TO HIS OWN LIFE ?’’
Series numbered from 31 to 39
These pictures are from a series of thirty plates executed on paper that I prepared myself.
This is a collection of pictures that include some texts.
The literary illustration is not yet completed.
The refrain of the song that takes the place of ex-libris claims
that: ''Papa, Papa,
Life, life,
is the phoenix
of America.''
The theme of this series revolves around the idea that even a poor little sparrow can see
from the air nearly everything that is going on down below ... even without being a great
bird of fire.
The allegory reflects the relationship that my analysis of symbolism found between the
bird and consciousness. 1973
PAGE 91
The sizes of the platelets vary between: 8 ½''X 11''
6 X 8
3 X 4
Series numbered from 46 to 50
The idea of manual engraving intrigues me as such ...
Theme: The witnesses
Simultaneous linocuts printing - monotype. 1973
Series numbered 51 and 52
Model of a story told by photogram. 17 X 22
Theme: America, the Cathedral-woman
''In the so-called primitive matriarchal tribes, it is argued that while controlling society,
women would be more exploited than here...
What will the outcome of this story? I still cannot answer that...
Series numbered series from 53 to 58
This quest for brightness and transparency that has haunted my youth when I was trying to
''manufacture'' colours that would not CHANGE by mixing pigments with varnish, egg whites
and everything that is found in a house, was nearly my Waterloo ...
Resin and plastic!
Started with opaque urethanes as a galaxy without a sun around 1968...:
53. ''men'' moulded in the open air with a density of – 2 pounds
54. ''cakes'' decorated and moulded to resistance with density – 6 pounds
... I came to something around 1972, it was bright, transparent; but I still had to
pour on an opaque picture; covering it ... then in 1973, I found it.
PAGE 92
55. 56. 57. murals created for the altuglas G. P. S. furniture company, Paris France,
to be incorporated into a moulded aquarium without metal frame support. 16''
58. the aquarium in question.
Chemical recipe? – State Secret!!! Nothing is yet perfect for the Quebec climate;
it still cracks at - 30 degrees.
***** (Note: This is the search for light and transparency that led Monique to
tinted glass (stained glass) in 1979. She would say: -''Before arriving at
La Maison de Verre ( 1979, stained glass studio / boutique), I lingered thoughtfully
from time to time before the store windows exhibiting works in stained glass.
When I saw what you did (my associate and myself) that it ''flashed'': your welding
lines were of a refinement and professionalism that was lacking in what I had seen
up to there. What I had seen was a badly finished, a bit coarse, not very aesthetic
as a finished product and then seeing your work, I saw that there was something
beautiful to do with stained glass.''
----------------------------------------
***** (Bio., Page: 531) (1976)
***** (Monique, like many artists, had ''periods'' throughout her work. In the sixties, she
accepted that her painting be called ''psychedelic''. She meant to convey that it was all a
matter of imagination and inner search. That drugs had no connection with the ability to
create (This is part of her collaboration with the police Youth Assistance unit at station
No. 34 in Montreal who sent her subjects (young) hoping that her painting class could help guide them).
In the late sixties, she was elaborating the concept of ''soul expression''. Then in the seventies
(1973 to 1976-77), she formulated ''Psychoanalysis through pictures or conceptual painting.''
Since 1987, she revisited her work, redefined it in terms of religious Sacred Art, and started to
establish the principles of secular Sacred Art. The core of her approach to art has not really
changed since its inception in her early years. The search for the grater Being, communication,
a language to express oneself, evolve, get in touch with oneself and others. Only her definition
of ''language'' has changed through her own evolution, refining the concept of a language by
painting that would encompass as much variables as possible in order to achieve a level of
understanding and knowledge necessary that would be at the height of her personal aspirations
and those of
PAGE 93
her brothers and sisters humans. The following is ultimately a ''formalization'' of the way that
Monique attempts to interpret her ''pictures.'' This text is the introduction to the photo album
of her paintings and dates from 1976. Finally, this ''guide / grid'' (Category) analysis is valid
for all of her work, whatever the period.)
‘’Painting is an art
I have not had time to look into the definition of art as such, my approach to defining life and
welfare demands, of course, a useful orientation to the act and the artistic object, I agree.
If I had to identify my affiliation to aesthetics, the demonstration of plastic theorems such as
the Academy presents them, would play a very small part in terms of my basic concerns.
The quality of my journey into the wide world (under the circumstances for approximately
eighty years, considering that I am a human being) mainly retains my interest, my commitment
and catalysis my energy and my efforts.
My process of initiation, expression and confrontation into the heart of pictorial language,
offers itself as an outlet for my desire to observe, to understand and finally to communicate
with and for myself, my race, my environment and the phenomenon of life.
At least two points are needed to draw a line visible to the observer. Thus, in principle,
to differentiate and evaluate the elements of my perceptual field, I established the practice
of my vision from two different angles of apprehension each one originating from a distinct
appraisal system.
A system for the experiment that I used in the social teaching that my cultural background
gives me. That is to say, this whole definition of existence and life under the principle commonly
called REALITY, which implies a range of spiritual, psychological, emotional, intellectual, physical,
social and economic activities. A system that I call ''directivo-critic'' and which of course carries
a set of organizations, methods and
PAGE 94
languages. I include ‘’verbal’’ language that can also be called ''progressive'' language.
And another system for the experiment which I used different teachings that gave me listening
attentively to autonomous observations of my senses at the contact of stimuli that they receive,
project, exchange, superimpose and complement. The objective ''co-science'' of the wider
world that identifies and defines a whole set of values and actions, energies and powers,
desires, needs and goals, it may be called OBJECTIVATION. This system of experience
of existence is also conducted by a series of organizations, methods and languages.
I include in particular the language of the ‘’picture’’ that I qualify as being a ‘’conceptual’’ language.
Then we can better understand the flow of my thoughts through pictures, medium where
I am speaking on the conceptual mode.
The task is to put together here nearly two hundred important conceptual reflections of my
life over the last 15 years in order of consequences relatively to one and another.
To facilitate the introduction of these pictures - report from a system of objectifying co-(n) science
of perception in that other organized system called reality, I am drawing here a schematic
categorization of the functions of perception that contribute during the production of each of
these pictures.
They then divided into six major functions of reflection:
1 - Existential testimony
practice that assesses self-consciousness that I realize from tangible experiences that come to
me in this part of my life that evolved within the framework and modes of ''reality''.
2 – Analytical objectifying reflection or re-conditioner:
practice that consists of observing on one part a specific incident (event, feeling, behaviour, etc..)
operating in the ''reality'' system and who, while is of concern to my environment does not
necessarily directly affected the evolution of my own existence, therefore art witness of its century;
second, it is the practice of assessing this specific incidence in the light of the system'' of
‘’objectifying co-(n)- science'', therefore art reflecting on its century;
finally, a practice by which I auto-condition myself to enjoy in an ever more tangible way
this wonderful journey into the wide world that I chose to carry through ''all'' of this
PAGE 95
sensitive vehicle permeable and influent that is the human mammal, therefore art ascetic of life.
3 – The organigram-condenser:
practice that expresses perceptions, concerns, feelings and impressions in the form of organic
structure which highlights the chain of consequences that connects and serves to clarify concepts
that seek expression in the tangle of different functions of perception.
4 - The Exorcist:
practice that aims to liberate objectifying thought of urgent and misidentified preoccupations
that subjugates and hinders its free operation.
5 - conceptogram:
practice that promotes the objectual emergence and articulation of a concept which is
clearly identified and thus the globality of its structure gives an imprescriptibly of autonomy.
6 - the corollary:
practice to prove the statement of a conceptogram by applying its premises to a situation
other or more specific than that under which the initial conceptogram was born.
It is, in sum, here, the picture/reportage’s that have formed spontaneously or under the impulse
of my will for clarification all along my journey through the vast world of existence. I am aware
that the drafting style that I used to write down my stories is a form of analytic shorthand of
perception. As such therefore, to reach a more common language, each picture requires at
least some explanation. This is the literary translation of this initiation that I am working on
right now, when my apprenticeship is ended; I will enter the phase of companionship.
Monique Jarry
Laurentides, Quebec 1976
----------------------------------------
***** (Bio, Page: 536) (1977)
***** (From a notebook: collection of writings on art and human behaviour)
PAGE 96
***** (March 14 to April 15, 1977)
withdrawal promiscuity Utopia
1: withdrawal
like the tortoise
it shelters itself in himself
and as its natural shell protects and insulates the reptile
from the storm, of danger, immediate cataclysm
as withdrawal protects the human mammal
1 – from unexpected attacks of destiny
2 – of the science of experience
3 - from individual failure and social rejection,
from the responsibility of choice and of selection
4 – from the thunder and the storm
5 – from shock and lightening
from lightening and light
6 – from the sun and light
7 – from combat and movement
8 – from death and love alike
he resists and retreats to suffer
‘’with honour like a man’’ as it is said
while the passive half of his soul
dream helplessly of flying to the countries of freedom,
yet chained here
by the other active half of itself
which relentlessly focuses its pure energy in the
reformulation of his protest against the forces
of adversity, subdued by the enemy
as a man destroyed by the
arrogance and the mystery of
the snake.
intelligence that apprehends
the possible ravages of pain
yield to the assaults of a tradition
called conservation
PAGE 97
that develops at each step of a certain cultural
approach.
The civilized soul abandoned to intellectualize
insecurity
reflects itself in a pyrite mirror
where the collective neurosis claims to qualify itself of conscience
and the time of the life cycle of the retirees of this world
crumbles in infertile fantasies
even when his nose remaining, in short,
of an insipid naïve and ignorant virginity, cries the
deficiency here of fragrances of countries of
freedom, knowing nothing of their
structure and even of their tangible
existence.
and the turtle remains isolated
in itself for fear of thunder
without knowing that above it
the sun reappeared and is already drying
the last reserves of fresh water
left by the rain.
Turtles live for hundreds of years
their chance to glimpse a rainbow
are many ...
and secondly, their stomachs bears
the ingestion of salt water ...
thus the bad is lesser.
Who indeed would have feared
that this reptile of apocalyptic origins
would have sunk in aberration
to the point to choose to protect
itself from a passing danger
at the price of a mortal risk!
there can be no question about this
since these animals, we are told,
are not endowed with intelligence ...
11 promiscuity
PAGE 98
111 Utopia
14th of march 77
A)
These days
my thoughts could be summarized
as follows:
1 -''I was not born
to maintain the objects
I bought with the money
earned by another''
11 -''I was not born
to purchase items I need
with the money earned by another''
And these two sentences
seem to me to summarize
much
of the difficulty of living
that many of
my human brothers and sisters
feel
in these days
in these lands.
B)
Also observing and analysing
all the paintings that are currently
started around me
one thing strikes me
before (mostly) this double-woman ***** (canvas no. 1976-010, Album 1)
that is liberating herself from a herself
1
‘’This archetype of splitting
was born of a first feeling
of a new being, regenerated, that follows
PAGE 99
the decreased being, which was
physically, psychologically
and morally sick''
11
''emerged in enthusiasm
this archetype has stagnated, unfinished
during a period of approximately
four months
until now
where enthusiasm towards her
seems reborn in me''
111
‘’This period of stagnation of the work
seems to correspond to a specific cycle
of evolution''
1V
''I know she is reborn by a (the work)
energy accumulated in
great suffering,
suffering that has intensified since
one month to the point of submerging
almost entirely any other concern''
V
''I re-take (re-feel) today this theme
of liberation driven by a concern
of a new scope, less anecdotal
and more universal.
So: the liberation extends to a
New level of intervention
i.e. : Originally, I was freeing myself from my
personal incapacity to exercise my free
arbiter in and on my life; disability caused
by the inferior state (dependency) to which a car accident
had reduced me.
Today, I talk about my liberation of a
PAGE 100
social disability to exercise my free arbiter
in a concrete way in and on my life; disability
caused by the state of inferiority
and dependence which the rules and structures
of my social environment had
reduced me''
V1
''We could say on the analysis of this
painting (when finished) that its interpretation
can occur at two levels, of course ...
BUT, we can also consider:
if we reconstruct the following evolutionary
cycle:
1 - disease
2 - recovery of health
3 - integration into community life
4 - suffering
5 - (assessment, revolt, rejection) liberation
V11
''Here arises a new question-
hypothesis:
pain requires
for the appearance of autonomy
an experience
health
suffering is a positive action
beneficial and is
(much less) not within the reach of the organism
to the extent
were the diseased of the organism
lacks the means to inform itself,
evaluate and
respond with independents
and autonomy.
V111
PAGE 101
''It is very annoying that
when suffering,
drives us to nervous exasperation,
bringing us to finally to contest the education we gained,
does this bring us to systematically repress and control our
contestations or at least to despise them
trying to minimize the
value and attempting to destroy
the result of a long process of the evolution of health’’.
1X
''If some hypothesis stated here
had any objectifying value
it would be to say how much acquired education,
this strong concentrated summary
our culture (or civilization) could
be regarded as a visible
and exterior symptom outside of a strange state
of health (the word used as a
general descriptive term of THE STATE of a being without
an evaluative accounting of well-being or
ill-being) ...
X
Finally in my approach to
finding myself, of my thoughts
and my needs, how much, oh how much
little time and energy to identify ‘’which of
my thoughts are mine and which of my
needs are mine''
and how much, oh how much little time
and energy does there remain to ''think'' and live
Life without my thoughts and my needs!!!
X1
Alas! Alas!
X11
PAGE 102
Who else would claim, realising that in the
current conditions of our culture,
in nature and in the amplitude of such a
challenge to happiness, to balance, to objectification,
to knowledge or simply to
the absolute, would say some art historians,
who else would claim, knowing all of this,
that artists have difficult character!
C)
When I said in speaking of my work: ''the work
of my life ...'' I did not realize that
‘’works-of-life'' we cannot produce
more than one as we only
have one life ...
as in any other field, it is
not expected that it will be transmissible
before really taking form and life...
it's a bit like saying that neither luck,
neither wealth, nor power can prevent
the beginning of the active birth
of such a work corresponds no more or no less
to the end of the life of its author.
--------------------
The end of March 77
All the characters I draw
could be subdivided into at least two
broad categories by the shape and the movement they
expresses.
Some are graceful, balanced, elegant, voluptuous
or tender, etc. ...
Others are inflexible, disjointed, cold, restrained,
worrying, as entangled or unbalanced, etc. ...
I have no value judgments to make on this,
in each category of more and of less excellent.
In each group the picture produced can be ingenuous,
PAGE 103
cute, sensing or dull, deep or
superficial, violent, visionary, apocalyptic, mystical
etc. ...
They may be humans as we can see them
versus humans as they may see themselves...
--------------------
(Continuing in the notebook, bio., Page: 551)
Why does Moles speaks of the equality of all
consumers to the right to ''Beauty''?
Is beauty the function of art in
society? and the decorative art, and architecture,
fashion, and leisure time?
Probably he is basing his certainty
and insurance on something that
escapes me! ! ! ! ? ? ?
ART - leisure of the gods and the rich
art – leisure for all
this is the enigma
when classical art was only the leisure of the rich,
they probably related to the
immersion into beauty
and that is what they want to transmit to us today
now that the social situation pushes them to democratize
their fortune.
But in those days for us
the lack of art was not perceived as a lack of
beauty, but of meaning; of life, of god, of soul,
of truth, of cosmic relations, of education and
of message. We did not COVET
castles as a content. Everyone knows that the air and sun
of vast plains is better for the heart and body, that the games
PAGE 104
of love are more tender and more passionate in the fields than in the
canopy beds. We coveted the castles as chalices containing contents
of life, the very substance of life, of knowledge and conscious love.
Naive surely but we were expecting ‘’Lycaniôn’’.
Moles p. 191 on ‘’the art of sound: creation and synthesis’’
...''There is no music in nature: all
music is thus synthetic''? ? ?
Question to P. Vaillancourt: ''What is a
natural sound (…or of the affective Forms …, Moles p. 191)?
Question to P. Vaillancourt: what will become of
arm and ear composers
like him?
why did they make him the
laureate? at Concordia for this
traditional and romantic melody?
unless the jury has considered
the overall performance of all the
candidates as a mere shovelled
psychic un-roughing
for beginners
and for beginners only?
with no absolute existence
value in the world of
MUSIC?? what??
Why does A. Moles whenever he speaks of
painting or music (classical?)
produced from inspiration and the execution
of a human author, by hand,
while devaluing it in its popular
and contemporary utility. (Inapt in filing
real consumer needs) always adds at the
same time the concept of '' GRANDEUR'' of the work in question
(almost as if it was in bad taste for that matter);
but what have they that is so great
our human works that are so unique and fragile. Of what
grandeur is he talking about.
cf. p. 193, p. xx (for painting??)
--------------------
PAGE 105
15th of April 77
Notes: written about the genesis of art,
the chapter on the need to say our message to the cosmos
by drawing on the beach with a finger or a branch
(where is the difference exactly; specify)
a few cabalistic signs, with the aware SATISFACTION
that the tide will erase the message
visually but not virtually
versus: Art and Computer A. Moles Casterman
p. 183 Text of Max Bense
--------------------
and the woman said to the modern art critic:
‘’I am the container’’
‘’only the content fascinates me’’
and I say this because my curiosity and my love
surpasses my will to become
my narcissism.
--------------------
Note: compare the text of Max Bense
with the said Christian square in ‘’Christ’’ Ideas,
historicity of Christ,
Container-content
Hypothesis: p. 183 Moles ''provide a material disposition to
the machine (to make babies, to the race, to make
life) like and empty mould to fill, as a proposal
of the sequence of our actions that will make real and hypothesis
on the creator mechanism, to a given syntactic structure''
and if the machine itself began, in the long run, to learn
to order itself the data of these sequences proposals
and translate, not strictly an hypothesis on the mechanism of the creator,
but a hypothesis as such
PAGE 106
or simply an hypothesis of ‘’its’’ own mechanism as a
creator ....
a product that combines content and container? ? ?
***** (End of the notebook.)
----------------------------------------
***** (Bio., Page: 561) (1976)
***** (Clarification: the first line of the next text are the titles of four of her paintings:
No.: 1968-005, (1968-025, 1969-010), 1973-220, ref. to album 1)
Ref: conversation with Holy
Topic: ‘’talking to yourself’’
... The fighter, the anguish of America, the man-who-walks,
... ... All this was before I
master spoken language ...
ideas skirted across the conceptual language
of pictures and this language contained in itself
the expressive satisfaction of awareness.
the spoken word, LANGUAGE also has in itself
the expressive satisfaction of understanding
however
while the deep satisfaction is not tainted by any
blame (I mean directive: forget all those who want to
discourage us from the ''line''). That is to say that when the public
does not understand the approach of the artist-creator, use
is that he hit's his chest and never impute
absolutely never this inconvenience to the author. The farther
he goes, the more he will be respected, sometimes
even loved (but that is rarer; finally, let us not ask
for too much)
this same deep satisfaction if it originates
Note: art as an outlet to the solitary intellect.
From a spoken-creation will be vitiated,
soiled, mutilated, slandered, scorned even
because the verbal approaches that astonish or surprise
PAGE 107
the public, which escape
understanding, or even more
simply: the approaches that are accessible to him but whose origin, the finality
or the pertinence escapes the immediate consciousness
of the public
are criticized, condemned
. at best in a private club and in principle
favourable to the transmitter-individual, our creator will be
tolerated (as we sometimes tolerates a tendency to
alcoholism or violence from a loved one)
. usually the verbal-creator, although
one appreciates the value of his works and that it is
NORMALY recognizing that we use and
exploit his ''findings'', all
NORMAL public (near or far) will tell him clearly
to retire and to ‘’make way for others’’*
* Which means in subtle as in clear: ''Listen with a
nodding approval or participate
in the general ''entertainment'', entertainment that can
vary between the ‘’cheap’’ honey of Pierre Lalonde,
quality honey of Michel Fugain and the incoherence
of amateurs that attack with emphasis
at a level of intervention far more ''higher'' but
without any basic knowledge of the structure
or of thought, nor of the structure of the LANGUAGE itself:
entertainment for intellectual people,
deep and intelligent! !
And there is nothing to do,
for if in the emergence of a ''beautiful pass'' that is
is in danger of being drowned by the aggressiveness of the cacophony of
the most unconscious, the verbal artist attempts to introduce himself
to restore to this beautiful pass all its fullness,
its origins, its purposes, its implications, its corollaries,
etc., its own unique whole existence, what!,
he will aggressively and strongly urged by the transmitter-speaker
of the moment that he should be silent or suffer the PENALTY THAT
HE WILL LOOSE HIS IDEA!!!
PAGE 108
If for the beauty of the gesture, the verbal artist accepts
the injunction, he will then have the ''pleasure'' to attend
as an accomplice auditor (under duress,
its his only excuse) to a very long and
very lush (sometimes ...) diatribe without a
really proved accurate objective, diatribe during
which in majority (there are exceptions for
the apprentice artist who self-criticises and draws tangible
Note: artist = manipulator with a structure
of thought and the structure of at least one language.
Benefit from its leas expression), diatribe
in which therefore, in majority, from speaker-transmitter
at that time will have finally contented himself by making
a descriptive display of what he ALREADY knew
before even beginning to transmit,
and this in a
subjective and so little explained causal chain that in short
is so null in the public that they cannot gain
any lasting benefit, nor even the speaker
himself. Words, words, words!!!
It is how to lack so much human contacts
without realizing that
one appreciates to the highest point the
least, even the impersonal pushing’s
in the metro ...
And even if this outrage of
‘’front vanity’’ (1)
(1) Ref. The Bible
or even the bored and flat silence
that is threatening a parlour, everyone
seems to believe that this is better than
hearing a real verbal creation.
Finally, what to do, it has been the consecrated way
for generations and generations!
What would Pavlov think?
What will happen to the future adult society
that is constituted by the few privileged offspring
of today
PAGE 109
that can ''apprentice''
more freely the structure of spoken languages
at the same time as the structure of
their own thoughts because finally, for those
rare privileged the all powerful stentorian voice
(in size, not in wisdom)
does not constantly hit on them on their first
learning of expressivity in drowning them with
‘’I know better than you’’, ''I know you better
that yourself because I've knitted you ...'', etc. ...
etc. ... well anything meaning
in form or in substance: ''Shut up, I
am the biggest, so the louder you speak
later (understood: by silencing the
younger) when you will be in turn
the oldest'' (it is easy to understand the success
of the advertisement by Lottery Quebec:
''Tomorrow, it will be your turn!''
This new generation will perhaps finally
Know how to speak and listen,
this will be a velvety pleasure to hear
for the professional verbal-creator, the artist.
Perhaps this future society will be
more qualitative in its selectivity!!!
----------------------------------------
***** (Bio., Page: 584) (1977)
''... Now: I speak and I express
‘’still a little more time'': and I will get up and it will be expression
and ''a little more time'': and I will walk and it will be
expression
and ''a little more time'': I will express and it will be creation.
I am arriving at the threshold of my active life, I am reaching the age where
it is our turn.
PAGE 110
It's strange even for me
this way that I now have to use the time and
energy normally devoted to the creative action generally
generator of consumer-art-objects
to write these thoughts that are not for any practical purpose,
or at least do not have the immediate appearance,
of public-consumer-art-objects;
writing, painting, composing, etc ... to create, it is
to some extent to be ready to compromise oneself not only
internally but also in a tangible and
sustainable way (leave witnesses of our actions
and thoughts behind us) - (Note: discourse and verbal-teaching
are also tangible but their penetration length, has in the
other a minimum because will remain to be
witness of our acts and thoughts that of which of
the globality of the discourse expressed by the speaker
would have been recorded in the immediacy
of the word heard.
This can be used by the apprentices wishing to come to
really, truly and fully compromise himself
as excellent warm up exercise
when he feels dawning in him insistently the desire and
the mater of a deeper commitment, but when
he still feels shy, insecure, rough, not
swollen enough with sap or decision, etc ...
speech of course still protects the back of the
speaker, this may appear useful in
a certain stage of evolution
However it renders very little and very poor justice
to the expresser that sows, that sows, that sows but
with very little seeds to get to the desired target,
goals that vary according to the intention of the expresser and the
degree of precision he wishes; certain Professor will desire to focus on:
memory, or understanding, or… some artist: the heart,
or the soul, or… some lovers: ...or ...
In the tangible compromission (right word???)
of the performed work
also exists levels of intervention
each corresponding for the creator
to a degree and specific nature of commitment
PAGE 111
Some examples:
talking about the general (society, families, religions, love
science, etc.)
at the anecdotal level
talking about the particular (story, joy, pain, distress
love, hope, hesitation, etc. ...)
at the anecdotal level
talking about the general at the universal level
talking about the particular at the universal level
the difference between the levels, sometimes subtle and difficult
to perceive (although other times enlightening)
may of course depend to a degree on the
degree of mastery of the author
but especially and essentially (essence) on the degree of commitment
of the latter.''
----------------------------------------
***** (Bio., page 601) (1977)
''…My thoughts led me to an approach and a philosophy of life
that attracts and nurtures those who are seeking themselves. My painting
makes those who know it vibrate. With such a balance in these
three levels of productivity, I think I
should be able to without too much risk for my
balance my personal economy stop being a colony
and accede to my independence and my autonomy. My
different states of services have not acquired me ''recognition''
to date but I think it applies to any colony
before the time of its actual independence. Only one
problem remains difficult. No services or
products coming from each of my three ''industry'' is
administered in a way to ensure me full material security ...
...
PAGE 112
The problem is not that I think that my products and services
do not meet market demand.
If you only knew how much time, energy and money
each and everyone spent to try to as best
to appropriate themselves my child! If you only knew how my ideas
on life, the structure of thought, individual and group needs,
self-expression, the need and role of creating, the meaning of
life, the role of death, of childhood, of old age, the
meaning of war, of couples, of the family, etc. ... if you only knew
how my ideas raise and reflect
exactly the concerns of my contemporaries.
If you knew how the visual, psychological and philosophical
Impact of my painting is fast and general. From the first contact they
raises questions and reactions. They leave no one indifferent.
With a simple and appropriate introduction almost everybody
understands it, finds themselves in it. I say ''almost everyone'',
because of course, here I exclude the purely intellectual brain
and the Academy because right now they appear quite often
more interested in plastic research of a
spatial and aesthetics organisation, etc ... etc ... while I especially put
emphasis on nature and role of the creative process
in the process of human aiming towards full development
of his global becoming. But finally, the share of the market represented
by the Academy and its fans is still overall very, very small
compared with the overall market represented at this time
by those for whom ''TO EXPRES THEMSELVES'' now has a
intrinsic recognized value.
So my products and my works correspond directly to
specific needs of the market. The market consumes and uses
them indeed. How come that I do not even have the guarantee and
the enjoyment of a minimum physical security? However, I am not
in business with myself in life since only yesterday!
It has been since the age of eleven that I participate and produce, being
held responsible for myself and my actions both physically and
morally. With my looks, my temperament,
my intelligence, how is it that you may ask that
I have not thought about, since all this time, to orient myself
differently? I've thought about it. But I still believe that the
PAGE 113
areas on which I have and still am devoting my actions
and my energy REMAIN those that correspond
the best to what I want to be in my life on earth
as a human female mammal.''
----------------------------------------
***** (Bio., Page: 617) (1977)
...''It's what’s in dancing
that permits you to enter hole, body and belongings,
with your sole and your problem’s (anxiety)
and come out without forgetting
and leave your anxieties behind.
In painting, it’s soul expression.
Simplicity is not a virtue
but a need
not an attitude
but a need
not a behaviour
but a need.''
Monique Jarry
----------------------------------------
***** (Bio., page 650) (1977)
***** (Oct. - Nov. - December 1977: Texts, reflections and others, in a notebook.)
***** (First text)
Painting
Faces
youth - maturity
René Lévesque
+ the Jesuit economist at the
University of Montreal.
PAGE 114
+? ?
''If all the faces around us
had this beauty
there would be no
necessity for the painter to
parody them to enhance
their expression… I
could then perhaps
linger to paint
more abstract concepts ...!!
----------------------------------------
***** (Second text)
I must paint what
I've seen.
My version of the ten
commandments.
Highlighting the im -
pact of the contradiction
between what we were told
and what I have seen for myself
what we do...
------------
what I saw?
‘’ALL’’ of the causes are
infinitely deep and moving.
And yet ... nobody
can be a rabbit, jackal, weasel,
eagle, wolf and lion all at once!
what to do? What can having seen
everything be used for?
What would I think?
----------
PAGE 115
No one here is protected
by the purity
of his intentions
his knowledge
his personal strength
his public forces
or anything else
or all of it together
Martin Luther King...
----------
And it is in the twentieth century
that this is happening.
----------
And it is happening everywhere
as much in the highly
evolved ‘’Yankee’’
than to those closer to nature
Amin Dada’s son
----------
And of course, it is not accidental
finally, it's quite obvious!
----------
I would not say: this is our times
nor this is our culture,
I would say: this is our nature,
this is our world.
----------------------------------------
PAGE 116
***** (Bio., Page: 678) (1978)
October 9th 77
During a conversation with 3 of
Pierre’s students, Marie-France and Pierre himself on
times that are changing a lot in these decades:
abstract art: the art of those who still sleep
in pyjamas.
----------------------------------------
***** (Bio., Page: 705) (1978)
***** (Short text in a drawing book)
***** (Early 1978)
''I have nothing
else to paint
except happiness
and sorrow,
love and
violence,
courage and
lies,
audacity and
insecurity,
the absolute
and poverty,
faith and
murder,
generosity and
solitude,
life and death.''
----------------------------------------
PAGE 117
***** (Bio., Page: 706) (February 27, 1978)
***** (From a text in which Monique speaks of herself and her relation to art and language.
Pierre is her X spouse of the time: Spring 1973 to fall 1978.)
''... I observe a lot and I perceive a lot,
transmit and extrapolate, that is essentially a
acceptable definition of ''art''.
My inability to communicate (which is
something else) did indeed constitute one of
the most powerful elements that made it so that I have spent
such a great mass of my psychic energy
to creation between the age of 15 to 25 years old.
What can be more useful to an apprentice-artist
than being unable TO USE anything of the resources
of the immediate environment? The only thing left to do
is to create from the elements of this environment
and oneself.
Youth that contests the coldness and ‘’inwallment’’
of our time and of our civilisation of course are crazy about
my work. It is very easy to be their
bow-head. Who better than I has so much interest in vomiting
incommunicability and to describe it and track it
with pictures in all its facets… with the
power of violence and ... the fire of
rebellion or… despair?
***** (Next page)
When I was 15 , we sought the
works of ''existentialists'': the contemptuous desperate
and jaded, the poets of ''oblivion''.
When I was 25, those 15 years old were searching
for the angry poets, artists of revolt. I
fitted ''very well'' in there until about 1973.
But since then my desire has changed. When I look
at the 5 year old children of the first hippie generation,
PAGE 118
I also think that their desires in 10 years will
be very different.
The time of the counter-culture is passed
(the counter-choices, the anti-choices, like saying
that all is hidden, to do all that is forbidden)
Already around the world, we can feel that
protest has lost its true revolutionary meaning,
it caries in itself its own death
because more and more, everywhere dispute degenerates
into simple fishwife arguments.
While the older ones, the youth aged 35 think that
they are of the left because they are bent on demolishing
and denouncing all institutions whatsoever,
the real young, their children, their students are quietly
building their reality in the image of their
needs putting everything all together in the same bag.
The seniors; whether they are for or against the system,
in the eyes of the youth, these elders
remain ''half-wits'' hanging on to
the stories-of-systems. And as for them
***** (Next page)
it matters little to them since in their eyes the great
interest in life, is to live.
An as for me, these games do not distract me
any more (at least, less and less) since I
have assuaged my grief and my revolt and that to
contest without despair, is after all very tiring and
ridiculous.
My art has gradually become my profession and
has become less confused (much) less confused with ''a
vocation''.
It is accepted that we do not live to work, but
we work to live. Still more must we
recognize the folly that would be ''working INSTEAD
of living''!
Thus the focus of course is going since then, for me,
towards living. And believe me the pleasure of living offers
***** (Next : Image number 1971-060.)