Christian Brun is the Executive Director of the Maritime
Fisherman’s Union. He has travelled extensively throughout the world, lived in
Mozambique, Africa. He lives in Shediac, NB. He is an exceptional
artist and author of several books of poetry. A man of many talents (pardon the
cliché but it fits). His website is below.
4Q: Before we talk about your writing and painting, tell us
about your desire to travel as much as you have and how did you end up in
Africa?
CB: Travels fuel my great curiosity. I have a never ending
almost obsessive need to generate new information through observation. I can
only go so far with a book and with local travel and have discovered the great
wealth of geographical displacement. The movement and grace of difference
through people, contact, communication, architecture, food, weather and nature
have provided an energy that is hard to describe. While the pizzazz might have
somewhat phased with age, I yet feel like an adolescent going through puberty
when I leave the country. When I am in a foreign area, I prefer walking, so I
can slowly grasp the nuances and the beauty. In 1994, in France, I walked from
Spain (San Sebastian) to Biarritz for example. My own little “Randonnée de
compostelle” of sorts. After that experience, I understood how travels were not
only exploration of sight, touch, sound and smell, but were also experienced
from within: all of these new found observations were having a profound effect
on my thoughts and perceptions of life. A relatively short travel experience
had changed who I was almost immediately; imagine if this was to happen for a
longer period…
A few years later, I was confused about what I wanted to do
with my life, quite frankly. I was completing my articling with a small Law
Firm in Ottawa and was disappointed as to the realities of the practice.
Pushing paper was not very fulfilling. Just as I was to pass my bar exams, I
was offered a job. I had applied with many Canadian NGOs a year previous as I
had a great interest in more long-term travels – so I could get immersed into
culture and language.
Mozambique was a perfect opportunity: 1- the project was
about civil disarmament and turning weapons into art, 2- Maputo, the Capital
where I would be working, was a coastal town, 3- Portuguese was the language
spoken, a Latin language, therefore accessible through French basics, another
cousin Latin language, and finally, 4- the field of international development
seemed much more real and substance oriented than what I had survived in the
urban legal world. I took a week to think about it, confirmed and was off a
month later in November of 1997.
4Q: You have many fine paintings to your credit. How did you
get into painting and where can your work be seen other than your website?
Next week I will be telling you a bit about myself; who I am, what are my passions, who is my family and why I write.
I lived in an orphanage for the first ten months of my life......
4Q: You have three books of poetry published at present.
What is it about poetry that that you enjoy and what inspires you.
CB: I like to say things in a snapshot. I like to also play
with words. Mostly, I am in love with the metaphor, always have been. The
metaphor lets you be true to yourself and not always reveal absolutely all of
who you are. I have learned earlier in life that one must protect oneself to be
free. Life is not all roses and blue skies and there are some people and
circumstances that can hurt and damage. I have always been myself, I believe,
with others, but often, I only share what I feel I should. I have created an
invisible filter coming in and going out. That is why poetry is so powerful. It
enables you to divulge who you are, but not completely.
I am inspired by nothing and everything. I have written
about the most mundane act of human stupidity (the fact that one needs to go to
the washroom once in a while, hopefully throughout his/her whole life - lol). I
have also written of the most typically exciting and cliché moments of love, despair
and drama. I have found that some of the blandest past photography can become
incredibly strong 30 years later – have a look at Dennis Hopper’s photos as an
example. Therefore, the mundane of today could very well enlighten the future.
I was also amazed in my twenties at how French poets like Rimbaud, Prévert,
Apolinaire and Éluard could speak of everyday events and make them so
interesting… or how Verlaine, Beaudelaire and Neruda could make the cheese
disappear when thinking of love, death and depression.
What finally really clicked the switch was when I began
reading our own Acadian literature, how real it was and how it was part of our
conflicted collective soul. In some ways, our Acadian identity was somewhat
like I was: for many years, it could not, and preferred not to reveal all of
what it was. Poetry in l’Acadie, is a code and an extremely important one at
that.
I am getting off subject aren’t I? Back to your next
question.
4Q: Please share a childhood memory or anecdote.
CB: Well… hmmm… I will share one that has shaped who I am. I
had built a very badly strewn tree house near our home in Cormier-Village with
leftover wood, planks, tar paper and rusted nails. I remember sitting there in
the doorway looking at the water flowing in a nearby brook and the nature that
surrounded me. It was the first time I really had a different perspective of
the world, I guess, from a different height in something I had built with my
bare two hands. Moral of the story is that my creation had enabled a new perspective
of the same things I looked at everyday… I realized much later that the
creative process was synonymous to youth and renewal.
CB: The visual arts came naturally as a complement to
writing… I am mostly visual in my concepts, but more literary in my
communication… so I decided to use both as a survival guide to procrastination!
When I find one creative process less motivating, I refer to the other… and
they both meet rather often. For example, I am attempting to write a text for
every painting I have produced (good or bad – lol). I’m hoping this will be a
lifelong project.
I have one exhibition per year at Galerie 12 in the Aberdeen
Cultural Centre in downtown Moncton. This keeps my blood flowing...
Thank you Christian for sharing your thoughts with us. We
look forward to more of your creativity in the future. Christian’s website is www.christianbrun.webs.com.
*An interesting note: Christian's sister Nathalie is the cover model for the novel Dark Side of a Promise.
Wonderful interview with Christian Brun. He was a creative, dear person and one I admired.
ReplyDeleteHe was an exceptional man, Nancy. Thanks for the comment.
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