Our new blog is another way we will be connecting with our members and the pastel world! This way we can share ideas, provide more content and opportunities for learning, and promote our colourful pastel medium. We will be making regular blog entries to cover an array of topics that will be informative and also fun to read!
As our very first official blog entry and official launching of our new website, we thought it would be fitting to honour a very special PSEC member and devoted friend who contributed a lot of his time, energy and expertise for over 10 years already… the one and only Patrice Landry!
Patrice became a member of PSEC in 2004, thanks to Pamela Carter, the President of PSEC at the time who introduced him to our society. One short year later, he joined the Executive Committee as Webmaster and Editor of our newsletter the Pastel Post.
During Suzanne Godbout`s presidency, Patrice was elected and accepted the Vice-Presidency, but after a short period of time, he gave up the position because of the colossal amount of work he had already undertaken with running and maintaining the Website as well as the Pastel Post. In Patrice’s own words « It was like having a full time job! ».
Many discussions ensued for several years about redesigning the website and thanks to the combined efforts of Suzanne Godbout, Sylvie Vézeau and Michel Raymond, the new website was launched in December 2010 after 6 months worth of very hard work. At the time, Patrice did not consider himself to be an expert in WordPress so he programmed the entire site in PHP computer language. « What a journey that was! » says Patrice. That was already 10 years ago this year!
Over the years, Patrice has contributed, volunteered and dedicated so much of his time in so many ways. He has been our photographer at exhibitions, the person who set up a Youtube channel for Les Pastellistes, he played an integral part in arranging the exhibition submissions to jury panels using programs such as Flickr, he set up our facebook page and facebook group, and also created and managed Fb events! And as if this list in itself isn’t long enough, he is also the author of the highly popular book « A man and his pastels », published in 2015, and written in honor of a lifetime of work by our beloved Canadian Master Pastellist, Horace Champagne, with whom he built a warm friendship along the way.
Patrice’s generosity, passion and hard work is all part of why PSEC has been a success over the years and how our society continues to grow today.
We especially want to thank and honour Patrice for his amazing contribution as our webmaster for over a decade, and for his countless hours of dedication and enormous generosity! On behalf of the Executive Committee and all of our PSEC members, we are grateful and thank you so much Patrice! Thank you also to all those members, fellow artists, colleagues and friends who directly or indirectly had the opportunity to work alongside Patrice! THANK YOU!!!
Here are some beautiful pastel paintings by the multi-talented Patrice Landry!
As mentioned above, Patrice is also a writer, and you can find his poetry as well as several novels he has written at the website http://minamots.com/minedemots/
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