In Memoriam: Elaine Amyot, 1932-2019

(Artist Elaine Amyot in her studio. Photo credit: Marc Blanchard, http://www.marcblanchard.ca )

Submitted by Elizabeth Blanchard

I was introduced to Elaine Amyot 18 years ago at a meeting of the Breach House Gang, a group of writers who met, and still do, every month in Nancy King Schofield’s studio on chemin La Brèche. It was during one of those Sunday afternoon gatherings that I remember Elaine reading from a draft of Les Pierres de Paris, a non-fiction piece about her childhood memories that would later go on to place in the WFNB Literary Competition. I was struck by the description of the “rose-coloured glass doors” of her mother’s bedroom; the fine lines of her mother’s vanity table; and the details of the mechanism that secured the lid to the “honey-coloured” box that held les Pierres de Paris, the kind of detail that, for most of us, goes unnoticed in the course of a day. Clearly, Elaine had recorded her memories with the care and aesthetic sensitivity of a visual artist.