Damase Rheaume. Sculptor. Wood carver. Sainte-Marie-de-Beauce, Quebec.  Active 19th century.

Damase Rheaume was a bird carver. Active mid to late 19th century; he carved and painted the birds of Quebec. He was collected by Nettie Sharp and others. There is a Robin, a Shore bird and a Carrier Pigeon by Damase Rheaume in the collection of Montreal’s McCord Museum.

Note: The article in Vie des Arts, La Voliere Enchantee,  lists Damase Rheaume as coming from Sainte-Marie-de-Beauce. Other authors put him as being from Baie-Saint-Paul, Quebec.

Ref: Francois-Marc Gagnon. Vie des Arts. Vol. 20, No. 82, Spring 1976. “La Voliere Enchantee”.

Link to a PDF (in French): https://www.erudit.org/culture/va1081917/va1186410/55033ac.pdf

Ref:Blake McKendry, An Illustrated Companion to Canadian Folk Art (1999).

Ref:Kobayashi/Bird, A Compendium of Canadian Folk Artists (1985).

Ref: Adrien Levasseur. Website. And:  Sculpteurs en Art Populaire au Quebec, Editions GID, Quebec. 2012.

Madeleine Duguay Monette. Fibre artist. Rug hooker. St-Elphage, Cte. Kamouraska, Quebec.  Active mid to late 20th century.

Madeleine Dugay Monette was one of Quebec’s most talented hooked rug makers and designers. Her designs are simply stunning and filled with color. She seems to have had no constraints and she showed it with unexpected shapes and a wonderful sense of color. She hooked the traditional scenes of her country and childhood and then seemed to stepped outside the ‘box’ and showed us her imagination in vivid primary colors. Madeleine Duguay Monette hooked with recycled material on jute coffee bags and inspired by patterns in the bags she sometimes incorporated them into her own designs.  Her hooked mats are spectacular and her designs are transcendent. Matisse would sigh.

She hooked rugs from the age of six until she married at the age of 21. In 1984 she moved to Montreal and resumed making hooked rugs of her own designs.

Her work is widely collected in Quebec; both privately and in museums and she also has appeared in many gallery shows.

Madeleine Duguay Monette at a showing of her work in Montreal:

Madeleine Duguay Monette. Fabric Artist. Rug Hooker. At one of her exhibitions. C. 2000

A Hooked mat by Madeleine Duguay Monette. The House:

Madeleine Duguay Monette. Fabric Artist. Rug Hooker. Hooked Mat: The House.

Madeleine Duguay Monette. Fabric Artist. Rug Hooker. Using the patterns in the jute coffee sacs:

Madeleine Duguay Monette. Fabric Artist. Rug Hooker. Using the patterns in the jute coffee sacs.

Ref: For a very fine on-line collection of her mats and some biographical notes:

http://www.antiquepromotion.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?viewmode=flat&topic_id=3186&forum=27

Danielle Samson. Sculptor. Wood carver. St-Ilois, Quebec.  Active 2000-.

Danielle Samson makes sculptures of birds from ‘as found’ materials. Particularly driftwood but any root or branch that she comes across. She can be very tongue in cheek with her shapes and her colours and usually adds social commentary to her work. She seems to prove that any shape or form of ‘found’ wood can be made to ‘fly’.  She is self taught and can be found in her studio in St. Ilois on the shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Some examples of her work are shown below. (Taken from her Blog-site.)

A group of three birds by Danielle Samson:

A group of three Birds. Danielle Samson.

A  Pair of Well Dressed Birds by Danielle Samson. St-Ilois, Quebec:

Two Birds by Danielle Samson. St-IIois, Quebec.

From a showing at the museum of Kamouraska, Quebec:

Danielle Samson. Showing at the Museum of Kamouraska.

Danielle Samson “sur l’art populaire’:

C’est de l’art qui ne se prend pas au sérieux. C’est accessible à tout le monde. Il faut que ça reste simple. C’est pour ça que c’est populaire. On ne se pose pas 30 000 questions pour savoir ce que ça veut dire : ça saute aux yeux. Il y a une dimension ludique, humoristique et poétique. Souvent, on reproduit ce qui nous tient à cœur. L’art populaire peut servir à faire passer des messages, mais il n’a pas forcément de dimension sociale. C’est un art qui est plutôt ancré dans le quotidien. Enfin, tout dépend de l’artiste.

“While ‘Folk Art’ can have a message; it is usually anchored in the day to day life of the artist.” This holds true from the early outsider artists to Quebec’s Danielle Samson today.

The confusion between folk ‘arts’ and folk art can be resolved by function. If the work has a function of any kind – to attract a duck, or cover the floor or even sit on, it is isn’t Folk Art. Folk Art like all visual art has no function except to look at. Eye (and occasionally mind) candy.

Claudia Lamontagne. Sculptor. Wood carver. Painter. Quebec City area, Quebec. Active from 2005-.

Claudia Lamontagne is the daughter of the artist Claude Lamontagne (see entry for him). Encouraged by her father, Claudia Lamontagne began expressing her talents in wood and paint. She combines both in her paintings on ‘as found’ objects and canvas as well as making striking carvings of birds (often raptors) and fish. She has a simplicity in her lines and colours that is striking.

A carving of a Salmon by Claudia Lamontagne:

Carved and painted Salmon by Claudia Lamontagne.

An example of her mark:

Claudia Lamontagne. Her mark.

Claire Thibault. Rug Hooker. Fabric artist. Baie-Saint-Paul, Charlevoix County, Quebec. Active mid-20th century.

Claire Thibault made hooked mats in Charlevoix County in the studio of Georges-Edouard Tremblay. She hooked the designs of Tremblay and put her own initials ‘C T’ in a lower corner of the mats and occasionally the mark of the designer (G E T) is also hooked into the mat. An example is shown below. She also had a label with her name and the Tremblay studio name that sometimes can be seen on her mats.

A hooked mat from the Tremblay studio hooked and signed by Claire Thibault:

Hooked mat by Claire Thibault. Signed C T and G E T. 1950’s.

The reverse showing the label:

Hooked mat by Claire Thibault. The Reverse.

The label of Claire Thibault and Georges-Edouard Tremblay:

The Label of Claire Thibault and Georges-Edouard Tremblay.