Mayo!

Never again do I want to hear ‘there’s nothing to do in Paris’, because things are happening left and right, and last weekend I had the pleasure of popping into several events which covered a gamut of gregarious culture experiences. There was an art exhibition at the Paris Fairgrounds, the high school production of She Kills Monsters and Cinco de Mayo celebrations at the Paris Wincey Mills Co!

Let’s start at the beginning of the weekend! On Friday May 3rd , I attended ART SHOW, an exhibition at the fairgrounds from Donna Mackenzie and Caroline Telfer, two rad visual artists. Their art and energies transformed the room from good to glorious; everything about the evening was very cool, charismatic and complex, from the art and its presentation to the guests and their fashions and, of course, the food (shoutout to the caterer!)

Caroline Telfer’s pieces are mostly large-scale paintings, with many of them starting as collages. Caroline creates on a small scale and then expands and paints.

Art show designer and maker Prinx Lydia (left) and Paris artist

Caroline Telfer at last Friday’s ART SHOW at the Paris Fairgrounds.

Telfer’s pieces have whimsy, are edgy and really tease the viewer with layers, surprises and dark sweetness Donna Mackenzie’s pieces ranged from tiny to small with each centimetre smeared and sketched or stark, bright white, really vivid and evocative work. Many of them part of sets or a series of pieces, with lots to tell and infer from these surreal, sensual and visceral offerings.

Saturday May 4th all my plans fell through, and it was serendipity because I ended up at the Paris District High School production of ‘She Kills Monsters’ presented by the drama club and it was - without any exaggeration beyond my usual dash of drama - the best theatre I have seen since I moved back to Canada! Every single aspect, every member of the team and cast were so full of energy, authenticity and ingenuity! I have to give a shout out to every single person in the program because they all deserve a round of applause and a puppy! Starting with the performers, if I had to use one word to describe their performance it would go something like this: Laura Clement, tender, Comet Daniels, powerful, Thomas Whitney, hilarious, Cale North, hysterical, Aloura Rusak, fabulous, Grace McLarens, incandescent, Micah Leitch, superstar, Amelia Flint, fantastic, Alex Champagne, uproarious and Issac Halsey, showstopper.

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