Le Cercle des Canadiens Franais has had une grande anne.
The French Canadian Club of Prince George significantly renovated their headquarters on Fir Street; they were one of the most heavily involved local organizations with the 2015 Canada Winter Games; and they are now the illustrators of pages 20-21 of a new book by B.C.'s French-speaking arts council (Le Conseil culturel et artistique francophone de la Colombie-Britannique).
The book is called Liv'art and in it francophone writers of the province were given a small story space and B.C. artists from around the province were given the chance to illustrate it. Le Cercle was approached about creating the images for Sarah Marty's story Samedi, Jour de March.
"A group of us sat down together, read the story, and talked about the conceptual ideas about what the picture would look like," said Rene Trpanier, executive director for Le Cercle. "The story was not set in Prince George, but we still wanted the image to have the look of Prince George so we made the railway bridge the main element."
The story is about a young woman, Stephanie, who has a Saturday routine of going to the market. It is Granville Island Market specifically, which also has a bridge dominating its landscape. There, she notices that everyone is distracted by their hand-held tech devices and not noticing each other.
She decides to break the ice by asking a random stranger for the time, so she gets a moment of actual conversation. The problem she suddenly realizes is she has a watch. But as she ponders this, a young man comes up to her and asks her for the time, turning the tables of fate.
"We all had a part. Everyone painted," said Trpanier.
The group was led by local artist Anik Provencher with Brittany Sarrazin, Daelyn Schmitz, Gisle Nadeau, Michelle Gaudet, Myriam Grgoire, No Kouri and Trpanier all taking a turn at the canvas.
"It was a delight," Trpanier said of the group effort to illustrate the story, then the reward of seeing their work in the book, which just recently arrived. It is spread all across the province, each short story by a different B.C. writer and each set of illustrations by a different group of regional artists representing the diverse franocophone community in B.C.
The group's original painting is on the wall at Le Cercle for all to see.
