Impressions de l’académie

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One thing I always think about is the question of whether or not academic life is still relevant. Institutions have increasingly becoming top heavy while downloading more and more responsibilities down the ladder.

As an Academic, it appears to me that attendance to committee meetings has more value that a consistent and dynamic programme of research. Obviously “academic speak” is able to dissipate the impact of a radically changing place of “higher learning”.

A story comes to mind. As a student at l’Université de Moncton, I had a student job working with my printmaking professor, Jacques Arsenault (https://bit.ly/41p24o1). Those couple of months is when I understood what being an artist means.

So, he comes in one day with a bag full of French fries, we place them on a litho stone and run that under slight pressure. It took a while but we eventually built up enough fat deposit to produce a solid black. Then Jacques started scraping the surface (the colours come from doing this over and over). This is the work above and “fries” is actually in the title. The whole thing is based on Raymond Roussel’s, “Impressions d’Afrique”.

To me, it just seems that we no longer have those kinds of collaborative explorations between faculty and students. You can’t really enforce it; but it certainly should be given value and facilitated.

A Return To The Blog

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The Wringing in Your Ear

My postings tend to be sporadic, more regular while I am teaching (as I am now). I often wonder what exactly to write about, obviously I speak mostly about my work with short texts giving some context. This has not been really satisfying as I am not certain that can be called “writing”.

There is still going to be a work posted at the end but first a story.

It is a story about how I crossed from childhood to the harsh reality of the real world. I actually remember hearing a loud crack at that very moment. It was a Sunday morning 44 years ago, I was 12. I got up and went downstairs to make myself some breakfast (I have always been an early riser). My favourite cereal then was Rice Crispies.

My Dad was at the kitchen table drinking tea and playing solitaire as was his regular routine. I remember the sounds of the cereal popping and the flick of cards on the table. As always, the radio was on and tuned to CBC radio (when that still meant something).

But it was a special day and Terrence McKenna was making a report from Jonestown. This was two days after the mass suicide. McKenna was walking around the compound describing what he was seeing and his voice was muffled because he was holding a rag over his mouth and nose because of the smell. Any search online using Jonestown Massacre with give you many more details. In short a cult leader (Rev. Jim Jones) went psychotic and made his followers drink Kool-aid mixed with cyanide. 900 people died that day and I was no longer a child… forever.

The piece linked below was made early in my career at Grenfell and was my first foray into sound/video art. You will hear the voices of Jim Jones, Terrence McKenna, and excerpts of an old CBC television show called “Front Page Challenge” and of course my own voice fades in and out. This is by far the most obviously personal work I have made. Of course all work is personal in some respects but this one was almost autobiographical.

A memory – a Moment

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Funny, I don’t write much about the neat things that happened in my life. There have been a couple that I kind of keep under the rug for one reason or another.

I was a student at the Universite de Moncton, 2nd year, a young more or less ignorant kid. Just being realistic. We had a class trip to New York, holy crap that was so cool. Every moment was like a new flavour to discover, there was danger and shelter; always something to keep your adrenaline popping.

We did the museum and gallery thing. Went to one gallery where I got to see actual prints from photographers like Robert Adams and Joel Peter Wilkens, we were just four students getting attention from the curator.

I almost got kicked out of the Museum of Modern Art for sticking my finger in a Jackson Pollock painting… I couldn’t resist. But they didn’t kick me out.

But, the thing that happened on New York that will move me until the day I drop my body is this:

One evening, an envelope is slipped under the door of my room at the YMCA, addressed do me. The note tells me to be at pier 43 the next morning at 10 AM. I did recognise the writing as being that of my photo prof.

The next morning, I get up, get ready and walk to pier 43. This took me through Harlem and other apparently less than desirable places. It felt oddly frightening because there was nothing threatening. I rember the basketball hoops with chains for nets…

I get to pier 43. I see, in a distance, an Italian style checkered cloth waving in the wind. There are three people standing around the table. I walk towards it, it takes for fucking ever. The sky is mostly grey but full of blue sucker holes.

I get there. It is my photo prof, a curator and none other than Robert Frank himself. I almost shit myself, I am just a kid, a rookie what the hell am I doing here with that icon. We exchanged simple small talk, he summers in Mabou Nova Scotia and I come from Dieppe New Brunswick, not that for and not that different. So we had something in common.

Frank spent his every penny on maintaining a building where he had his studio and that also housed homeless people of all kinds. There is something important to learn with that.

Anyway, that was reason 1 of why I decided that all I could be was an Artist.

Pierre LeBlanc

Artist