EDMOND CHATIGNY (1895 - 1985)

Edmond Chatigny was born in 1895 in St. Isidore de Beauce, Quebec. When he retired as a cattle farmer, he started doing a type of constructive yard art, which employed many little carved additions to a main figure, such as many lttle birds added to a larger mother bird. He was not interested in selling his work,but rather interested in creating an artistic statement on his terrain, and each year he would have a colour theme for the splatter painted additions to his yard. When he cut his grass it would take two days. One to take everything off the yard, and the next to cut it and put everything back. Edmond's sculpture was always nature based, flowers, birds, deer, etc. They were complex assemblages which could be put back together in any number of configurations and still be effective. He continued to carve and decorate his yard, which he turned into a fantasy garden. When I was on the farm I used to work hard, then when I retired I had nothing to do and I became bored. That s what decided me to start making little things - wooden flowers, birds, then all kinds of things. I do it with a little saw and a little knife. Sell them? They are not sellable. They are not made in a minute. It s all green, white and red with a little brown. This year I think I am going to put a lot of green and white . Edmond Chatigny died in 1985. Ref: Kobayashi/Bird, A Compendium of Canadian Folk Artists (1985); Blake McKendry, An Illustrated Companion to Canadian Folk Art (1999), Bernard Riordon (Beaverbrook Gallery), Canadian Folk Art from the Collection of Susan A. Murray (2007); Grosbois, Lamothe, Nantel, Les Patenteux du Quebec (1978); McKendry, Folk Art (1983); Pascale Galipeau, Les Paradis du monde (1995).

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