THURSDAY, MARCH 15, 2007
A Daughter Preserves Her Culture through a Mother's
Proverbs
A Daughter Preserves Her Culture
through a Mother's Proverbs
Showing through April 6 at the University of Maine at Fort Kent, Acadian
Archives.
The exhibit will then be featured at Crystal Compass Books in Presque Isle,
April 9 to May 5.
Fort Kent and Presque Isle -- "Comme on fait son lit,
on se couche." (As you make your bed, so you must lie in it." "Plus
ça change, plus c'est la même chose." (The more things change, the more they
remain the same.)
Or, in the translation of another adage, those who lose their language also
lose their culture. Waterville native Rhea Cote, adjunct professor of Women's
Studies and Franco American Studies at the University
of Maine, Orono, has dedicated much of her life to preserving both her native
Franco-American language and culture.
Cote, both author and artist, has compiled a list of dozens of Franco-American
proverbs used by her mother as Cote grew up. She has presented many of the old
sayings in a unique art exhibit showing through April 7 at the University of
Maine at Fort Kent, Acadian Archives. The exhibit will then be at Crystal
Compass Books in Presque Isle, April 9 to May 5. Through the exhibit of
collages of the proverbs, "Maman Disait"
(What maman said), Cote explores her artistic side in
a celebration of her Franco-American heritage.
Translated to any language, the exhibit takes a walk back to a time when a
parent seemed to have a proverb or adage for almost every occasion.
Using collages of mixed media - cutouts from period advertisements, garment
labels, found objects, paint, cloth and photographs - Cote resurrects the
proverbs and sayings of her mother Rita L. St. Germain Côté (1919-1982) with 39
framed art pieces. The work represents, says Cote, both the creativity and the
simplicity of a mother who raised her children using proverbs in both French
and English to explain some of the simple lessons we learn as children. The
exhibit provides insight into the daily life and traditions of a typical
Franco-American family.
"I believe the proverbs are important and could be used in many areas of
passing on of family traditions and storytelling," Cote says in her
artist's statement. "I wanted to celebrate my maman's
creativity with some of my own. I would like to see more art that is created
with French language incorporated, so that the public displays in homes would
reflect the bilingual, bicultural as home decoration - both inside and
outside."
Cote, who grew up in Waterville's South End and published a book, Wednesday's
Child, about her childhood experiences in a Franco-American community, says she
also undertook the proverbs project to help her understand the proverbs in a
modern sense, "one which takes them out of the nostalgic realm and puts
them into the living culture of today," she says.
Cote sought to create "a picture representation of the proverbs using
collages, which allows for visual puns and interpretations and what they mean
to me," she says. "I wanted others to see these and to think about
their own interactions with proverbs in their lives and to incorporate them in
their daily living storytelling situations to revive this important
tradition."
Cote’s mother, Rita Cote, was one of 17 children born and raised in the
northern town of Wallagrass, Maine. She lived in
Waterville all of her adult life and was
"ordinary" Franco-American woman - a seamstress, who lived the
culture on a daily basis, Cote recalls. Rita Cote spoke, read
and wrote in both French and English.
She also was creative. "There wasn't anything she couldn't sew, knit,
crochet, hook, braid or quilt," Cote says. "Her needle and thread and
other sewing tools were her materials in expressing creativity."
But what struck Rhea Cote most about those early childhood memories she has
carried in her memory for years was the pure simplicity of the proverbs and the
regularity with which her mother used them.
“Toward foibles, the fancy formidable and frank, she would pronounce the
proverbs at will. I am shocked to find how many of the proverbs she knew that I
remember having heard as daily fare,” Cote recalls. “Something would
happen. She'd walk by and in rapid-fire French express a proverb in response. I
knew something special, something different had just been said.
“I would stop what I was doing, and demand an explanation, a translation,
because even though I understood French completely - no need for translation
for most things said - but here, in her proverbs, was a language unfamiliar to
me,” Cote says. “Sometimes, she'd try to translate, or explain, but mostly
she'd say, ‘Oh, it's just one of those old sayings they always used to say.’
And here she was repeating it to me out of her memory.”
Where have the proverbs gone from our lives? Cote wonders. Where do these
artifacts of the cultures go when they become rare?
Cote says she hopes her exhibit helps viewers realize that everyone has access
to the tradition of proverbs and sayings in their families, and they can create
their own pieces, in whatever format - quilting, wall hangings, appliqué or
wood working - that reflect their proverbs and sayings.
“This show is not simply an exercise in nostalgia,” she says, “but how I choose
to reclaim for myself the proverbs, and to give meaning to them as I see them -
part of the everyday magic of life” and an every-day part of a culture she
wishes to preserve.
In conjunction with the exhibit “Maman Disait,” Cote
also has assembled curriculum materials linked to Maine Learning Results, which
she has made available for school teachers in Maine.
The Web site created around the exhibit, with proverbs and translations, and
related curriculum materials can be accessed at
http://www.fawi.net/proverbes/MamanDisait.html.
Contacts:
Rhea Cote, (207) 989-7059
Lisa Ornstein, 207-834-7536
Wendy Koenig, 207-762-3800
Lisa Ornstein, Director
Acadian Archives/Archives acadiennes
University of Maine at Fort Kent
23 University Drive
Fort Kent, ME 04743
Tel.: (207) 834-7536
Wendy Koenig
Crystal Compass Books
207-762-3800
422B Main Street
Presque Isle
Wendy Koenig