MONTRÉAL’S RAY OF LIGHT: MARCELLE FERRON AND THE CHAMP-DE-MARS MÉTRO STATION By Dina Vescio It’s Tuesday, February 7, 2006. As are most winter days in Montréal, Québec, today is cold and dry. I am headed out to work, along with the rest of the greater Montréal population. I trudge onto the Montréal métro orange line at Bonaventure station with hundreds of other passengers. Some read, some eat “breakfast-on-the-go” bars, others try to catch a few extra minutes of sleep before they reach their office and their workday begins. Most of us experience this every morning, five days a week. It’s monotonous. It’s routine. It’s like the movie, Groundhog Day (1993) with Bill Murray. This morning is the same as every other morning, until the métro car stops at Champ-de-mars station… Marcelle Ferron’s (1924-2001) story is no secret. It has been told before. In fact, it has been told several times in newspapers and books, through lectures and interviews, in exhibition catalogues and on websites. Her career stretched over more than fifty years and from the beginning, she was oriented toward the exploration of new avenues in art. Her interest began early on, when she registered at École des beaux-arts in Québec City at the age of seventeen. Ferron quit her studies however, because she was unhappy with the way the school handled her questions pertaining to modern art. She therefore sought her answers elsewhere: Montréal. Once settled in Montréal, she came upon a painting by Paul-Émile Borduas (1905-1960). She remarked, “It’s fabulous. This is a real painter."(1) In an act of bravery Ferron contacted Borduas, he became her mentor and close friend. Borduas’ teachings allowed Ferron to succeed in creating a style of painting where she was able to express her personal emotions without the constraint of traditional methods of representation. These conventional techniques espoused by the Catholic Church and École des beaux-arts, were challenged in Borduas’ 1948 manifesto Refus global which sought, “a new social order born of spontaneity and the free exercise of imagination,”(2) upon the cultural life of Québec society. Ferron was one of the fifteen signatories of Refus global. She was inspired by this revolutionary way of thinking and joined the group of non-figurative painters known as the Automatistes, led by Borduas. A few years later, when the Automatistes went their separate ways, Ferron moved to Paris. She lived in Paris for thirteen years where she continued her art practice and exhibited her work in Europe, Canada and the United States. It was in Paris, where she began her study in the art of stained glass; a material that would change her life and artistic career forever. Working with glass she realized that she could explore light and colour to their maximum capacities, something she had strived for in her painting. She returned to Canada in 1966, as an internationally recognized artist with a passion for and commitment to working with stained glass. Several churches and public buildings in Québec are enriched with Ferron’s stained glass works including the International Aviation Building in Montréal, Place du Portage in Hull and the Courthouse in Granby. Created for Champ-de-mars station in Montréal’s underground métro, Les grandes formes qui dansent (1968) however, was a work which forced Ferron to confront and push boundaries. It was a defining moment in her career. Through this work, she became a well-known and appreciated artist of Québec culture. The construction of the Montréal métro, led by mayor Jean Drapeau (1916-1999), promised to have a style of its own. Every station was to be uniquely conceived by a distinct architect. Artworks were to be integrated into each station. Art director, painter and caricaturist Robert LaPalme (1908-1997) had sole judgment in the selection of participating artists. LaPalme showed a clear preference for representational works that recalled Montréal’s history. Sixty members strong, the Société des Artistes Professionels du Québec opposed LaPalme’s artistic views and wrote a letter stressing that he was commissioning, “an outmoded series of picture-stories, ridiculously unsuitable to the context of a subway that is said to be the most modern in the world.”(3) Ferron signed this letter, just as she signed Refus global twenty years earlier, along with six other artists. This group believed that an obligation to illustrate a theme through representational work was a condition of the past; freedom of expression was the new rule. Ferron got what she wanted. Daniel Johnson (1915-1968), Premier of Québec, decided that the Québec government would sponsor the artistic project designed by Ferron for Champ-de-mars station. He made it clear to the Drapeau administration that Ferron was the aesthetic master of the project; that no one should interfere or pressure her to change the design of the piece.(4) Ferron was one of the only artists to contribute an artwork to the Montréal métro without a predetermined theme. Moreover, she was the only non-figurative artist commissioned while LaPalme was art director of the Montréal métro. Before the inauguration of Les grandes formes qui dansent in 1968, Champ-de-mars métro station consisted solely of a roof (fig. 1). Ferron specifically designed the piece as an integral part of the structure’s architecture. She took into consideration the building’s location, function, quality of light and the seasonal changes of the surrounding environment. She felt that a stained glass installation could only be meaningful within its cultural setting if all of the natural elements were considered. “You must feel the place, feel the culture,”(5) Ferron added. Ferron composed three exterior walls of architectural glass measuring thirty, forty and sixty feet wide in Les grandes formes qui dansent. The abstract work consists of large organic forms of both clear and coloured glass. Thick bands of intense red, yellow and green shoot up from the base to the very top of the wall, like arrows. Swirls of blues and purples wrap themselves loosely around them. The forms vary in shape and size, harmonizing within the overall composition as they flow, run and cut into one another. In conjunction with the company, Superseal from St-Hyacinthe, Ferron invented a method that allowed her to build these walls of light by inserting panels of invisibly jointed antique glass between two clear glass walls. In this process, the walls are divided into square and rectangular window panes which form a metal grid pattern. Nonetheless, the arc and ribbon-like bands move freely throughout the composition. The bands are not restricted by the grid but rather create a sense of movement through and across the thin metal structure that holds the windows together. The free-flowing shapes compliment the slanted roof and round, thick, columns of the building as they move in the same diagonal and vertical direction. The forms also create a striking sense of positive and negative spaces which allow the Montréal urban landscape to be seen from multiple vantage points. Because Champ-de-mars métro station is naturally lit, the radiated effect from Les grandes formes qui dansent varies over the course of the day and furthermore through the change of seasons in Montréal. The enormous glass walls envelope the space and play off each other in a rhythmic movement of surfaces. The passerby is encompassed by an altered pattern of translucent forms echoed on the floor and ceiling. The artwork is invigorating and spontaneous, colourful and warm (fig. 2, 3 and 4). Following in the footsteps of the Automatistes who started a social revolution, Ferron persevered. She constantly strived for her artwork to involve the community which encircled it. Ferron wanted her artwork to be positioned in the heart of the modern city. She wished for an architectural structure that not only satisfied the public’s physical needs but their spiritual and social needs as well. In a battle of figurative versus abstraction, Ferron knew that for an artwork to be successful in the métro it had to be simple, direct and intensely visual. The métro user was a fast-paced individual with a non-artistic background who needed an easy-to-read visual surrounding. Les grandes formes qui dansent allowed the population of Montréal to come into contact with an aspect of culture that was usually only seen in museums. Ferron desired an art taken out of the private space of the collector, out of the museum context and made social. She wanted to create an alternative space where art could be observed and made accessible to everyone. This was Ferron’s main goal:
Ferron was reassured that she had successfully done this when she received a letter from a cleaning lady who rode the Montréal métro to and from work on a daily basis. The letter described the lady’s feelings toward Ferron’s artwork, “Rain or shine, when I am tired and grey, it warms my heart.”(7) At a time when women artists struggled to prosper in a male-dominant art world, Ferron worked hard to establish herself and gain recognition. Her choice to work with a medium traditionally seen in a religious context and handled by men, showed her courageousness and devotion to her art practice. She created her modern, urban artworks of stained glass to prove that she was just as capable as the men working in this domain. She stood up to LaPalme and supported her commitment to non-figurative artwork. Through this, Ferron paved the way for women artists in Québec. She carried on Borduas’ spirit by breaking boundaries of tradition, making abstract art and striving to transform the ideology held by the dominant figures of society. Sleepy-eyed, I spot something on the métro car floor. It’s a vivid, organic shape of colour beaming in from the outside. It surprises me; it seems so odd to be enjoying such a warm, colored effect inside a cold, bland, cement public space. It puts a smile on my face and I look up. It seems to be coming from above the métro level. It only lasts a few seconds before the doors of the car shut and the métro heaves forward. Was I the only one who saw that ray of colored light? I look around at the people sitting near me and await their reactions. I’m just a normal passerby, going about my daily routine, but somehow I feel that what happened only a moment ago, was made just for me.
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