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Need help with your income tax?
The CLSC René-Cassin offers a free Income Tax Clinic between March 17 and April 10, 2008 to those who:
• Live in Côte-St.-Luc, Hampstead or Snowdon West
• Have yearly income under $20 000
• Need a simple income tax return
Info: 514-488-3673 ext 1496

Adopt Wally
Wally is an affectionate 6-year-old male cat who loves life. His presence will put joy in your home. Wally is taking a supplement to protect his kidneys. Call Animal Rescue Network: 514-938-6215

Hooked on rugs
John Fretz

Bored with formulaic media art and tired themes on gallery walls? If so, the texture and patterns of hooked rugs now on display at the little-known Musée des maîtres et artisans du Québec, at Cégep de Saint-Laurent, will amaze you.
This revolutionary folk art gripped mid-19th century North America. Women on isolated farms and in small towns could never dream of art school in Montreal or Paris or afford the brushes and paint. But they suddenly discovered the freedom of using commercially cheap burlap backing, adapting an embroidery technique to hook and knot textile strips into elaborate designs.
Cloth was recycled from old dresses and cast off shirts. During long winter evenings, out came the loom and women took deserved breaks from family chores to create personal art. A proud maman would display her newest addition when the priest came to bless the family.
Some 450 of these marvels form the permanent exhibition at the museum. Director Pierre Wilson says he has 9,000 more pieces in storage. Charmingly displayed in an impressively elegant 1931 replica of an 1867 neo-Gothic church (with a magnificent hand-carved wooden ceiling), the collection of handcrafted furniture, wooden carvings, textiles, pottery, silver and religious artifacts is inspirational. Of special interest is a dramatic grouping of painted rooster weathervanes.

The rugs are faded to muted tertiary colours yet glow with age-old vitality. The lofty mingles with the prosaic: the superfine, exquisite abstract geometry of a woven ceinture flechée, painstakingly stitched quilts and a spool-woven rug made from discarded nylons.
An exhibition of four great modern Canadian practitioners of the art of the hooked rug is on display until April 13 at the museum.
Doris Eaton of Nova Scotia, taught by her grandmother, took up rug hooking later in life and has been at it for 40 years. She hooks painterly rugs that have a beaded visual precision – dreamlike florals and evocative landscapes.
Newfoundland native Deanne Fitzpatrick uses second-hand clothing that achieves startling colour effects, as in her Three Trees, a dance of quince and muddy profusion.
Rachelle Leblanc from New Brunswick, now living in Montreal, dyes her own wool to achieve a precise everyday reality. Her narrative images portray ancestral themes.
Margaret Forsey, also from Newfoundland, and influenced by Grenfell Mission rugs, graduated from art college in 2006 and lives in Halifax. Her smallish hooked portraits of children and teens – and a girl with the yellowest hair imaginable – have the off-centre appeal of naïve art. Her edgy colour combinations are bold and modern.
Don’t miss this show curated by Penney Burton & Denis Longchamps, running Wednesday to Sunday from 12 to 5 pm until April 13. Admission is free Wednesdays and $4 for seniors Thursday to Sunday. Discover this jewel of a museum at 615 Ste-Croix (du Collège Metro).
Info: 514-747-7367
All pictures by John Fretz