Michel Normandeau

Over the years, the subjects of my columns have fluctuated between my long-ago memories and the more recent ones, but I recognize the richness of contemporary individuals in our midst – those we run into frequently and yet, whose story and value we may not know. This month, I will tell you of the importance of artist Michel Normandeau in our cultural landscape.

Actually, it was following a chance encounter at the post office that I realized that his presence there seemed incongruous to me. After all, this is the painter who is always busy with his brushes on the mountain no matter what the weather. Michel Normandeau is a constant in my ski season and I’m sure, my skiing friends, that he is in yours, as well.

Michel Normandeau was born in Montréal. At the age of seven he developed a health issue that required a fourteen-hour surgical intervention. It saved his life, but he subsequently suffered from a unilateral loss of hearing which affected his balance. During his long convalescence he started drawing, and then he realized that his pain was less intense when he drew.

In adolescence, he discovered that sport helped him bear the pain. Boxing gave him a way to channel his energy and concentration, to forget that he was suffering and could hear only half the world. He trained at the Club de Boxe Olympique on Park Avenue in Montréal. He had talent: his spirit and his attention to technique (the “sweet science”) allowed him to demonstrate that. Michel won his first 30 fights and was crowned Montréal inter-school champion. But an event affected him profoundly: the death in the ring of boxer Cleveland Denny in a match with Gaétan Hart. Michel lost his 31st bout and hung up his gloves.

The young man still needed a physical outlet, however, so he turned to cycling. He transferred the passion he had had for boxing to this new sport. His new zeal rapidly led him to be considered a high-level cyclist.

Our lives are rarely lived in a straight line. Sometimes life takes us back towards known things, but things whose importance we have forgotten. Michel, who had known our part of the world since he was twelve, came here to settle at the age of 27… and it became his home. The changing landscape moved him deeply and he rediscovered his earlier love for drawing.

He began to paint what looked magnificent to him: the beauty the surrounds us. It is often said that if we lose one sense, another expands to fill the void. Myth or reality? Whichever it is, Michel sees what we hardly notice, or don’t see anymore.

Initially, when I first knew Michel Normandeau, the starry night skies painted above his landscapes were characteristic of his work. Today, I understand that to a degree, it’s his childhood that inspires him. Don’t deceive yourself; as in every field – sports, science, business – it’s through experience, practice and passion that you develop mastery.

One might wonder how many times has Michel found himself in the same place with easel, oil paint and brushes, creating a perception quite different from the view before him. But Michel is an artist of light. He sees its variations and its effects on nature and he has the talent to be able to reproduce all this beauty.

And to return to this artist you so often see on the slopes… In the beginning, you may be shocked to see this man, his beard white with cold. Then you recognize him as a local curiosity to those who ski Mont Tremblant for the first time. Then you pass by without noticing him because he’s part of our landscape: this landscape that you consider to be unchanging. Except it isn’t; it changes constantly and we have the enormous privilege of having among us this talented artist who presents us with a gift of the magnificence around us.

When you are up on the mountain thanks to one of the mechanical lifts, Michel has already reached his creative vantage point by foot, his equipment on his back. He is both visible to all, and isolated in this world of light and colour which reduces his ever-present pain.

Today, on January 12, 2024, it is -22 °C at the top of Mont Tremblant. I phone Michel, and of course he’s at his position and of course he’s cold. Oh, Michel! If only I had your talent and your level of mastery, I would also tenderly hold a paintbrush…even with frozen fingers.

More from this author by clicking on his photo below.