Our parents’ house

When the artist Linda Vachon took possession of the family home, she promised herself never to erase her parents. To make them exist despite the absence.

The 56-year-old woman attaches great importance to objects. She knows that each of them has a story and when said story concerns her loved ones, she struggles to get rid of it. “You might think I’m clinging to the past, but that’s not the case,” she says. It’s more that I see the beautiful and that I bring my roots to life. »

I’ve been the painter on social media for over a year. I love his characters, I find them real (in the sense of damaged and alive). A few days ago, she posted a photo of a scratched tile floor. The caption read: “Make a floor like I make a painting. »

My curiosity was piqued. I called her.

Linda Vachon took over her parents’ house in 2011. Since then, she has been working on it while respecting their legacy. Better yet, by honoring it. Take the bathroom, his most recent work…

If you can always keep old mirrors, you still have to renew the floor, one day or another… Linda ended up removing the linoleum, reluctantly. Below, she found a floor covered in marks. She chose to keep them. To paint this floor making its wear shine, as if to recall all the feet that have trod on it.

The link with his paintings?

She likes to see that life has passed in the area.

When the time came to redo the gallery, Linda insisted on recovering the planks her parents had walked on. At the same time, she was offered to participate in a fundraising campaign to support women victims of violence. She had the brilliant idea of ​​cutting the boards into small slices and gluing these pieces to wooden panels. Panels on which she painted.

The list of transformations carried out by the artist is long. Long and touching.

Linda’s father, who died in 2008, loved birds. She put one of her work gloves in a tree and slips seeds into it every day, bringing together the most beautiful specimens in the area.

She converted the chimney of her parents’ old outdoor fireplace into a lamp. “They often made love fires. This light continues to live in another way. »

She also picked up the loveseat from her mother, who left her last year. It was the first item she bought when she moved into residence. It is the one on which she landed to watch television, listen to the radio and, eventually, stick against a new man. She who thought she was ending her life without a lover…

“I realized that beyond being my mother, she was a woman, admits Linda Vachon. This loveseat has become very important to me! It represents the moment when my mother found happiness again. It is now near my computer. I can sit on it to do illustrations… And I feel my mother’s energy when I do. »

The apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

Linda’s parents also gave meaning to objects. So much so that her father collected the contents of the bin that Linda filled before leaving to live in an apartment… “You know what you throw away last? Like, your school books. He went behind me and he kept everything, ”she recalls laughing.

The man had also lined his shed with drawings given to him by his grandchildren, letters and wild flowers received on birthdays… Of course, nothing changed.

“There are still words from him all over the place,” adds the artist. He left many notes in anticipation of when we would take possession of the house. »

Linda confides to me that her mania for keeping everything sometimes exasperates her boyfriend. That he would like to get rid of the “chairs all untidy on the ground”, the old paternal wheelbarrow covered with moss or the obsolete BBQ that Linda plans to eventually recover…

“There are lots of things that I keep on standby while waiting for the right project,” she admits.

But Linda Vachon does not tell stories. She recognizes that the treasures she accumulates will one day be someone else’s waste.

“In addition to my parents, two of my brothers are deceased. Death, I know it is inevitable. And I know that if I leave, it could be heavy for my loved ones. They’ll have to sort it out, and there’s stuff they’re going to throw away because it won’t mean anything to them… So, I started sorting that out. »

The day of his 51^and birthday, Linda Vachon sat outside with a few boxes of keepsakes. Letters from a former lover, cards received in his youth, objects too precious to end up in the trash. She set it on fire, then she collected the ashes.

At home, there are the ashes of my loved ones. Now there are also the ashes of my memories.

These are the kind of ghosts I would live with.