It was an Amazing Experience

 

 By: Terence Mbulaheni

Joan Simmonds is the Director of the French Shore Historical Society in Conche Newfoundland and the Project Director for the French Shore Tapestry Project. She’s very active in Conche, beginning  her career as a catalyst in the community volunteering at age 13, selling tickets for the local parish committee. 

As Director of the Tapestry Project, she raised the funds necessary for the embroidery work to be carried out. Working tirelessly, she managed a team of more than a dozen people through out the three-year project, supervising the hiring and training of a dozen artistic embroiders from 
 the community, as well as arranging the space for the work to be carried out.  

Joan and embroiders

Joan says, "Any community has to depend on volunteers. You have to take care of your environment and it will take care of you".   The Newfoundland government recently honoured Joan as one of volunteers in the province who contribute over 35 million hours a year of valuable unpaid time to their communities and local organizations.

French Shore Historical Society

French Shore Historical Society Facebook Page 
Meet one of the embroiders who worked with Joan 
 

Embroiders

Genesis

By: Terence Mbulaheni

“…I grabbed the Bible, opened up Genesis, and I said go…”, said Christina Roy when asked how she began  to imagine  a work of this magnitude. Her key roles in the Tapestry Project included researching the story, collaborating with the embroiders in Newfoundland, selecting the colours to match her husband, Jean-Claude’s drawings, taking photos of the nearly endless drawings that made up the 70 metre tapestry, and e-mailing them with instructions to the embroiderers. The hardworking and creative embroiders would then project all the pictures onto a linen, trace the scenes and get down to bringing all the historical stories to life.

Christina Roy & Jean-Claude Roy

Christina is a doctor by training, with a longstanding interest in embroidery.  She and her husband Jean-Claude Roy came up with the idea of designing an embroidered tapestry showing the history of Newfoundland after visiting the Bayeux Museum in France. She collaborated with the French Shore Historical Society to adapt the concept to tell the story of Newfoundland’s historic French Shore.

Please see:http://bit.ly/KRzGUL

Inspiration

by: Terence Mbulaheni

Barbara Doran is an award-winning, filmmaker who lives in St. John's Newfoundland. She has produced and directed innovative films and television shows for almost three decades. Her critically acclaimed documentary films and dramas have been broadcast throughout Canada and internationally. Her interest in history, culture, and the human condition continues to create groundbreaking work.  This includes: Voices of Change, a film about sweatshops in Guatemala, serial killers on death row in The Man Who Studies Murder to AIDS, and now the history of the French in Newfoundland. 

Director: Barbara Doran & Camera operator: Mark Ellam

 Barbara is a highly regarded and respected film producer who is also well known for the  memorable television mini-series Random Passage, and the recent feature film, Love & Savagery. She is actively involved in the Canadian film community, and is an active member of various Canadian film associations.

“God was the first Artist”

 

“God was the first Artist…” says French painter Jean-Claude Roy the visionary artist of the French Shore Tapesty. Jean-Claude was born in France, and developed an interest in painting while living in Newfoundland in the 1970’s. Since then he has become one of the best-known interpreters of the Newfoundland landscape, primarily working in oils with a palette knife. 

Artist: Jean-Claude Roy

His paintings can be found in public and private collections in Canada, the United States and Europe. Working with his wife Christina and the women of Conche Newfoundland, they brought the idea for the tapestry to life.  At first he only agreed to draw the first images but then he didn’t stop drawing. He spent three years creating the images that the women of Conche painstakingly embroidered.  His magnificent artistic work is the central thread through our film Phantoms of the French Shore, which airs on CBC Newfoundland and Labrador on the 28th of July 2012.

Resettlement

The Phantom of the French Shore documentary celebrates Alice Dower’s family history, amongst many. Alice was asked to participate in the Tapestry Project by the Coordinator, Joan Simmonds. To Alice, this was a personal project as it revisited her family’s resettlement story, while commemorating her husband’s great grandfather, James Herbert Dower. 

Alice Dower

James Herbert Dower and his crew arrived in Conche in 1816 from England, and he decided to settle in Conche in 1817 with his family. By 1857, Conche was a thriving fishing settlement with the Irish immigrants working peacefully alongside the seasonal French fishermen. In 1861, John Dower, the son of James Dower was awarded a gold medal by the French government for saving three French seamen who were in danger of drowning on June 24, 1860. 

John Dower's medal

  

Alice, moved to Conche in 1968 where she met her husband Austin Dower, is proud of her community's history.

Phantoms of the French Shore

Phantoms of the French Shore is the documentary film that unfurls like a wave rolling across the Atlantic Ocean, weaving complex links that connect a tiny Newfoundland outport community, the grand sweep of history that pitted mighty nations against each other, and a passionate French artist who has created a monumental work of art. 


Inspired by the 11th century Bayeux Tapestry, the extraordinary 220 foot-long tapestry opens with the creation of the world and threads a fascinating journey through time, using the history of the French in Newfoundland as the central theme. 

At the heart of the documentary, two powerful narratives: the characters whose stories are captured in the tapestry; and the unique artistic collaboration of the tapestry’s creators Jean Claude Roy and the talented women of Conche Newfoundland, whose embroidery brought his images to life..

Director: Barbara Doran and Jean Claude Roy

There’s little physical evidence of 5 centuries of French presence on this coast but the spectral images of French settlement animate the tapestry and The Phantoms of the French Shore.


The Vikings are here, French fisherman, English pirates, naval battles between empires; tragic, triumphant tales of glory, and quiet, desperate accounts of loss and lyric love. It is a grand sweeping story that would remain unknown except for the dedication and determination of unusual allies in protection of a shared heritage. Directed by Barbara Doran and produced by Jerry Mcintosh, The Phantoms of the French Shore airs on CBC Newfoundland and Labrador (CBC-NL) on July 28 at 8:30pm. DVD copies are now available for online purchase.