To describe an only child, as wild as they come, perfectly unbearable, excited, nervous, and everything that goes with such characteristics, you could say: a real Gilles Seguin. Yet his parents...
"My father was a doctor, his father was a doctor, is brother was a doctor. My mother was a musician, she also sang but not professionally. School? I went to school for eleven years in twelve different schools... that gives you some idea. Oh yes, I was very disobedient, rambunctious, nothing interested me except... to draw, I drew all the time. That brings to my mind a lady called Alma Leblond who ran a rooming house in front of Beaux-arts school; she rented rooms to art students, she was my sitter
&emdash;I was ten years old&emdash;and when I was with her, I drew; then, one day she took the time to look at one of my drawings and said&emdash;Lord but what you're doing is beautiful!&emdash;now that's what started me, the way she spoke to me. She then took me on a tour of the rooms occupied by the artists and showed me their drawings... they were everywhere, on the walls, the ceiling, everywhere I tell you! At school? I was unruly, wouldn't take anything from anyone, wouldn't pay attention to anything or to anyone. I was really pigheaded. My parents put me in another school but it didn't do a bit of good. Believe me, I saw a lot of guidance counsellors. I was a loner but not really mean, I just didn't want to fit into the mold, that's all. Oh, of course, it was intended that I study medicine but I couldn't bear the sight of pain... and my father had his office at home so... ?"At fifteen, he entered a competition for admittance to Beaux-arts school and was accepted. A sculpture professor (Patricia Nolin) was surprised by the quality of his modelage. Unfortunately, his father passed away six months later so that he couldn't finish his first year. He then took commercial art at Sir George Williams university and finally landed a steady job as a draughtsman in the architecture department at Radio-Canada (C.B.C.).
What was my behavior at that time? Way out... spaced out... sports cars, guns... as crazy as they come... I wouldn't take a thing from any one.,. I was one of the angry young men... but Radio-Canada really gave me my training, I really liked it there; that forced me to show discipline in my drawing because, before that, I drew a lot but in a scattered way&emdash;now, there, I learned a lot of things." The advent of television brought him a job in the scenographic department where they designed stage sets. His difficult temperament calmed down, he seemed satisfied, almost happy. He stayed there until nineteen sixty-five, ten years or so. "At that time, I was also painting rather seriously and media critics had been kind to me, I'd even had a successful exhibition. . . then life played a dirty trick on me: I was in an automobile accident and a piece of glass went into an eye which I lost. I was thirty years old. Since I could no longer hope to be the best, I stopped everything, I left everything and went... to Spain. A friend (Pedro Rubio) had told me so much about Spain. I stayed four years in Malaga. I was trying to find myself, I think. Then I bought a little fisherman's shack in Los Bolichesthere weren't many tourists then, and I turned the shack into a store selling artists' material. I had bought tons of stuff in Barcelona. Sure, business was good except that there wasn't any money in the cash register, we were buying too much material. Finally, the whole thing " fell through." He then started a new business with a friend who pulled out just as the business was beginning to go well. He sold his business in disgust and settled in Mijas in a villa where he began to paint again.
"... when you lose an eye, you no longer have a perception of distances. Also I'd lost contact with what was going on in the field of painting in Montreal and in New York. With just one eye, limited to just two dimensions, I was having a lot of trouble; however, I discovered something absolutely extraordinary in optics which I put into practice; since then, I haven't stopped painting, doing illustrations and travelling all over the world. I married four times and the last time... was the right time." It's worth noting here that, meanwhile, Gilles was the designer of the first hundred broadcasts of Radio-Quebec and the first co-operant abroad, for four years in charge of all scenography for the first television program in Africa (Ivory Coast). I don't have enough room here to give all the details of Gilles Seguin's life, every episode of which I can hardly wait to recount (he has travelled so much!). What a guy, kindness itself, tuned to suggestions and rich with experiences already carved in his features.
Louis Bruens
