Committee rejects sculpture of French-language advocate Georges Forest because it has 'too much beard'
Provencher Park statue delayed indefinitely, sculptor Miguel Joyal calls process 'a real nightmare'
A new statue planned for Winnipeg's Provencher Park to honour St. Boniface activist Georges Forest has been postponed indefinitely, after the committee overseeing the project rejected the work because, they say, it looks too old and has too much facial hair.
The committee's chair, Marcien Ferland, said all five members of the board rejected the work by Winnipeg sculptor Miguel Joyal.
The piece is "too old," has "too much beard," and the "wrong facial angles," said Ferland. The bust also lacks "character [and] personality," he said.
Forest, who died in 1990, became famous in the 1970s for defending French language rights in Manitoba. He fought an English-only parking ticket all the way to the Supreme Court in 1979, which struck down a 1890 law that had made the province unilingual.
Ferland, who knew Forest personally, said the committee provided Joyal with a photo and asked him to "faithfully" reproduce it in three dimensions.
Joyal ended up using multiple photos, including one from Forest's widow, to construct his piece in his own style, he said.
I've been doing this for 40 years and I've never been treated like this ever in my life.- Miguel Joyal, sculptor
"It's too far removed from the photo which we provided him with," Ferland said of the sculpture. "The committee is dissatisfied with the production."
For decades, Joyal has worked at the Festival du Voyageur making snow and ice sculptures. Perhaps his best-known work, though, is his statue of Métis leader Louis Riel, which stands outside the Manitoba Legislature near the Assiniboine River and replaced an earlier, and controversial, statue in the same spot.
From the CBC Archives: Joyal's Riel statue is unveiled in 1996:
Working with the Forest statue committee has been "a real nightmare" so far, Joyal said.
"I've been doing this for 40 years and I've never been treated like this ever in my life."
Joyal first began working on a statue for the committee five years ago. He first created a full-body figurine of Forest with his arm on a parking meter but it was rejected because it would be too costly to bronze.
Joyal completed his scaled-down bust of Forest in January.
Since then, he has already taken a first stab at redoing the work after the committee raised concerns, including one about Forest's abundant facial hair. Joyal said he toned down the beard, which then required him to change Forest's head, and put more emphasis on the statue's eyes after the committee complained they were too soft.
"I did the changes that were expected of me and I did it in good faith. I spent an extra month on this piece," he said.
"I can't go on doing this. This could last forever."
Ferland said even now with the changes, Joyal's statue does not look like Forest. The committee planned to unveil it to the public June 13 but that ceremony has been cancelled and postponed indefinitely.
The committee needs a break to think about its next steps, Ferland said. They are considering whether to abandon Joyal's work entirely and commission another artist to do the Forest statue.
The estimated cost of the sculpture is $50,000. Ferland did not say how much has already been spent on the project.