About Us > A Word from the Founder

Here is the story of a dream come true.

When I took my first painting course, I immediately understood that from then on, this would be my life. After many workshops with experienced artists, I realized that I had to develop my own style. Everywhere I turned to, resources did not exist but in large centers. I then decided to go in these large centers and when I got back, I felt quite alone on my planet.

Many tours of the Maritimes and of the Province of Québec, exhibitions in galleries and museums, different trips in Europe, in western Canada and in the States, all gave me the taste for it and the incentive to go on. Having started a professional art school for drawing and painting, I realized that those who wanted to dedicate their lives to visual arts were confronted to the same problems I had before. It’s at that moment that I had the idea to create a marketing agency. Financial disaster struck due to a lack of resources of all kinds. So be it, I decided that if I couldn’t get what I wanted this way, there had to be another means of action to give these artists recognition and a way to make progress. So, I started focussing on what I knew I could do best, teaching. Free courses and workshops were my main activities for many years. The elderly, children, libraries, schools… Then I opened up a professional art school for drawing and painting.

During the next ten years, there were contacts with founders and presidents of a number of symposiums. Our group took shape quite naturally, Nicole Bolduc, Marcel Fecteau, Jacques Hébert, Georges Goguen. They all went to work recruiting participants and informing the media. Off we went, and in 1999, the first Visual Arts Symposium for North-Western New Brunswick was launched. From year to year, new artists suggested others. The symposium’s large family became more and more important to the community. Business people of the region strongly supported us from the start. The various governments gave us grants to fill in the gap in our finances and the population bought lithographies from the symposium’s participating artists during those ten years of existence. Currently, many local and regional artists are recognized and invited elsewhere. Some have their works exhibited in art galleries and their talent will surely lead them to greater success. The Board of the Symposium met as volunteers, once a month, except in summertime, during all those years. It is incredible to see what happens when everyone pitches in. So, the story of my dream come true, it is, in fact, the story of all those kind-hearted people who shared my own dream. Personally, I think that culture is at the base of any society, but even so, this society has to find ways to express itself. Our community has proven to us that we can succeed at being seen and heard when we believe in what we do.

So, I take the opportunity of this space on the Web graciously offered to us by Concept J MULTIMEDIA Inc., to thank everybody who participated, from near or far, in the realization of this great project.

Greetings
Danielle Bergeron
Founder and Director General