“As long as the crowd has enjoyed it, the rain can take it away and I don’t care.”
Francois Pelletier
We live in a world where everything seems to be disposable or temporary.
From fashion trends to websites that constantly change to computers and cars, nothing lasts forever. And earlier this week, I learned that same attitude has also spread to Renaissance and Baroque art.
Francois Pelletier works fervently on a detail of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel. It’s been days of painstaking work, but the 27-year-old Embrun resident is unfazed that something as inevitable as a rainfall could take it all away.
If you’re ever in the ByWard Market, you’ve probably seen him sometime over the past 11 years, hunched over a drawing outside Sugar Mountain on William Street.
“Some people call me the Mona Lisa Guy,” grinned Pelletier. “But I haven’t done a Mona Lisa in seven years.”
Perhaps that speaks about the impact of his work.
Using soft pastels and chalk, Pelletier recreates famous pieces, from Michelangelo to the Dutch painter Vermeer, which the public instantly recognizes. While reproducing the work of the masters might be a daunting task for many, the self-taught artist embraces it. He loves the joy people get out of seeing a well-known piece.
Besides, he said, “there’s always a little bit of your own fingerprint in it.”
I caught up with Pelletier, who recently switched up his venue for Buskerfest at the Sparks Street Mall.
Before beginning, he marks a grid into the ground to keep the proportions right. “I sit so close that it’s hard for my eyes to grasp it.”
He assigns me a square and shows me how to layer on the colours —pink, yellow and white — to create a warm flesh tone. The key is not to blend it all together.
“You’re rubbing too much,” he said. “Instead of making one colour that’s a mix of all the colours, you want to be able to see all the colours, one on top of the other. It fools the eye into thinking that it’s paint.”
Cracks and lines in the ground become a part of the piece, giving it character and originality.
While spectators — especially regulars, who return to check on his progress — give him energy to keep working, there are downsides to the medium. Because it takes days to complete one piece, he works in 12- to 16-hour stretches, often in extreme heat. Kneeling on the ground for hours takes a toll on his back.
It pains me to think the drawings won’t be there for long and I tell him so. But it doesn’t bother Pelletier.
“A lot of people ask me if I feel sad when it washes away,” he said. “But when I draw, it’s just as much about the process as the result.
“As long as the crowd has enjoyed it, the rain can take it away and I don’t care.”
