14 Dec Day 2

At the breakfast table, we decide to go back to the antique shop in St-Jean-Port-Joli. Last year we tried and it was closed. This year, the weather seems to be more in our favour, warmer and sunny, so they might be open. Then, we will go visit Raymonde’s summer place in Cacouna.

 The shop at St-Jean-Port-Joli is open! The place looks impressive. Tires, bedframes, wooden panels, cages, wheels, bikes, lawnmowers, pieces of steel . . . We walk around the yard through the junk taking photographs. Across the street from that yard, there is another antique shop that has a collection of domestic objects. Furniture, mugs, decorations, LPs, suitcases, dishware . . . there is even a corner with shelves full of canvases. Bogdan buys a bag of brass handles from the store.

 On our way back, we stop at a fancy casse-croûte that serves gourmet poutine. Beautiful food, poutine dishes with fiddleheads, cheese, gravy, and green onions—they even have lobster poutine! We are happy about our food choices. We sit down and immediately start working. Continuing the spirit of last night’s dinner conversation, we are still quite occupied by the ideas for the show.

How do we see the space? Do we fill up the space with small images? Big images?

Do we want anything sculptural in the space? Objects?

Who is available to work on the production during the summer? Who is going away? When should our deadline to have everything figured out be?

Tentatively, we conclude that we should have a good idea of what we are showing by June and start printing and producing the work before everyone goes away. Some of us would already be gone by then, but some of us are sticking around in Montreal. Meanwhile, we will meet regularly to work on editing images for the show.

After lunch, some of us head to Cacouna to watch the water and see Raymonde’s summer place. There, Raymonde takes out an antique carpet that she wants to photograph and lays it on the grass. We climb the rocks on the shore. Katie and Spoons are happy to see the water, while Bogdan collects some soil for his garden. Lise is taking pictures of everyone and of the interior of Raymonde’s summer house.

We come back from Rivière-du-Loup close to sunset. Lise, Jin, and Katie make cyanotypes in the driveway from objects around the house.