"Elle"

Recently I was asked by the organizers of the Cabot Trail Writer's Festival to participate in their Artist's Gallery (10 Cape Breton Artists in all were asked)  to paint a 'cover' for my favourite Canadian book.  I accepted,was honoured to be asked and my painting was showcased along side some really great works by other Cape Breton artists. Below is a little bit about the terrific book I chose as well as my contribution. 
Many thanks to the Cabot Trail Writer's Festival for the challenge and the opportunity to have my work on display at their event.

Title: “Look at me - quatgathoma”

Inspired by the book “Elle” by Douglas Glover

Artist: Teena Marie Fancey

Medium: acrylic on wood

Size: 8”W x 10”L

Douglas Glover’s book “Elle” left a very visual impression on me, as did the character.  Marguerite is a young 16^th Century French noblewoman who is forcibly marooned on a desolate island at the mouth of the St. Lawrence in the Strait of Belle Isle with her lover, old nursemaid and an odd and lacking assortment of supplies. She is a quick witted, intellectual with a taste for sex and the grotesque and narrates her memoir in a ribald and thoughtful fashion. In it she recounts her life, abandonment, quest for survival and coming of age. She describes for us her observations, vivid dreams and spiritual connections to the wildness of the land and its inhabitants as well as the hard lessons she quickly learns as the Eurocentric misconceptions of the Colonists of her time have left her completely unprepared for her encounters in the wilds of the New World, Canada.

I’ve chosen to depict our protagonist in her barren surroundings. Above her is a black and clouded sky. She appears to be mildly amused at her predicament and slightly bored or put out as she waits for rescue or, perhaps, the moment when she will transform, rise up like a bear and show us the wild heart that Canada has given her.

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