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photography by paul vienneau Stratford, Prince Edward Island, Canada 902.367.7845/902.940.5205(cell) |
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___________________________________________________________________________________________ [Biography] [Artist Statement] [Contact] [Galleries] [Prints] [Calendars] all text/photos/artwork copyright 2007 Paul Vienneau ___________________________________________________________________________________________ |
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Photo by Mary MacKay |
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In Perspective Article by Mary MacKay The Guardian, Charlottetown, PEI Saturday, December 23, 2006 It has been a long journey, but Paul Vienneau is finally feeling at home for Christmas. After a life-altering accident 15 years ago that injured his spinal cord and left him minus his left leg, he has furthered his career as a professional bass musician and private teacher and has added photography to his creative pursuits. In addition, he married his college sweetheart and, most recently, settled into their new Stratford home. A 2007 artist calendar of photographic images of his new P.E.I. home is also about to be released. "At least once a day he says, 'I love living on P.E.I.'," says his wife, Pam Beck, who hails from Montague. Vienneau had the music in him from the start, thanks to his musical family who lived in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, when he was a child. He got his first drum kit when he was seven years old but later settled on the bass guitar. He started playing professionally when he was in grade 11. "For my last two years of high school, I played six night a week pretty much from 10 at night until 1:30 in the morning and would go to school the next day", he says. He enrolled in the jazz program at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia where he met his future wife, Beck, although it was a fact unbeknownst to each of them at the time. At the age of 22, Vienneau moved to Toronto in 1990 to further his bass-playing career. But that dream came to a screeching halt on August 12, 1991 when he was hit by a tractor trailer while cycling with his older brother, Kevin. "Just as it hit me, I sort of blacked out and came to underneath (the truck's trailer) with my legs and my bike pretzelled...", he remembers. "I just sort of felt my life draining out like grains of sand in an hourglass and I did feel a certain number of them there so I told my brother that I loved him and waited for the light to switch off again for the last time". Fortunately, he clung to life but was in a coma for the next month. In addition, his spinal cord injury meant he would not walk again. "It was sort of like I went to sleep and woke up as someone else with a new sort of reality", he says. During the first of his two years in hospital, his weight fell from 190 pounds to 85 pounds. He also battled a severe blood infection that resulted in the amputation of his left leg. It was no easy road to recovery. Even signing surgery consent forms in the early stages was difficult due to his head injuries. "I remember trying to write my name and getting three letters (on paper) and just losing my place", he says. He remembers the first time he was able to get out of his hospital bed, into a chair and into the outdoors for the first time in 11 months. "It was like a neat taste of freedom after being indoors in sterile air with the smell of hospital hand soap", he says. "So getting up in the chair meant I didn't need someone to push my (mobile) bed down somewhere. I could actually leave my room and go". Nearly two years later, Vienneau left the hospital for good. He resumed his musical career with vigour, recording and performing with several ECMA- and Juno-nominated and award-winning acts and performing internationally as a bassist. "I ended up touring more than I did before (the accident)", he says. In the late 1990s, he started getting homesick for the Maritimes so he made a point to take oodles of photographs of Nova Scotia scenes. In 2001, he moved home and rediscovered Beck's phone number. As fate would have it, she had moved but calls to her former phone number were still being referred to her new number. "I had just moved into my new apartment and when he called that number it was actually the last day that (message) was there", she remembers. Sparks flew. They wed less than a year later. After a few years of apartment living, they purchased their first house in Stratford, P.E.I., six months ago. Vienneau now teaches bass privately and works with the jazz ensemble at Birchwood intermediate school. He also started with the P.E.I. Mustangs wheelchair basketball team, which is made up of players with and without disabilities. "At first I thought I was starting to play very late in life, but at my first tourney I saw players who are in their mid-60s who still have the speed and skill and knowledge to dominate on the court... So I should have another 20 or so years to play", he says. Now 38, his photography has taken on a new life. Instead of documenting things, he has moved to a more impressionistic style that was fostered by the style and writings of New Brunswick photographer Freeman Patterson. "When I go out shooting I like to open up to what is around me and see subject matter where others wouldn't", he says. "One way I do this is to make things other than the subject my photo. So I could make the photo about a colour, or a series of shapes, instead of a literal clump of trees or a field". For example, one photograph is the reflection of the Sheraton Hotel in the harbour. He calls it Picasso Conversations. "This looked like an abstract painting of two people having a conversation. And to me that has more meaning than just something that's random. There's a lot of things like that that come out of play or improvising", he says. Vienneau is considering a show of his photos in the future. He is also working on a projection show of his works to present to schools, to communities and groups. "I'd like to show people that there is nothing keeping them from creating personally meaningful artwork". |
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“Picasso Conversation” |
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Using his photography skills, honed after a life-altering accident in 1991, bass musician Paul Vienneau shot this face-altering self-portrait. |
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Paul Vienneau found this Horse and House photo perspective on Panmure Island. |
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Paul Vienneau met his future wife, Pam Beck of Montague, during his college years at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia. Photo special to The Guardian by Eric Hayes. |