Dominique Bréchault yearned to be an artist from the time she was a child in France. But her parents persuaded her to pursue a degree so she completed a masters in art history at the University of Poitiers.
“And then I moved to Canada, I moved to Vancouver and then I thought well now I’m on my own, I’m going to go to art school,” she said.
After she graduated from Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Bréchault saw a graduation show that featured works that hailed from Vancouver Community College’s then new jewelry department. “I was just blown away,” Bréchault said. “I thought oh my God, you can make jewelry like that, it’s like sculpture, it’s like art and I thought yes, I want to try that.”
Bréchault applied and was accepted for the two-year jewelry program at VCC.
“The rest is history,” she said.
Bréchault will receive a Mayor’s Arts Award for Craft and Design, Friday night (Nov. 22.) She was shocked when she learned she’d won. “I thought it was a mistake, actually. I was waiting for a phone call saying you’re the wrong person,” Bréchault said. “But I’m not giving it back.”
Bréchault works with silver and gold, sometimes copper and stones, to create pieces that tell stories. “[My work] has a lot of details, textures, words sometimes, lots of personal things,” she said.
She fashions jewelry that serves as sculptural objects and “transformers” that can serve as a pendant or ring.
“For instance, I’ll make a pendant and then make a box for it so there are several elements to the object,” she said.
Her Letters From Home collection includes house-shaped broaches that are textured with words and another that shelters tulips.
Bréchault’s jewelry has been exhibited in Japan and recently as part of the Craft Council of B.C.’s 40th anniversary show at the Pendulum Gallery downtown.
Ron Kong, a longtime professional advocate of craft, textile artist Yvonne Wakabayashi and artist and writer Ruth Scheuing chose Bréchault to receive the award.
“The choice of Dominique was based on the excellence of the design and fabrication of her jewelry pieces,” Kong told the Courier in an email. “Also, she has been an active presence in the applied arts (craft) community for years. She has taught and mentored and contributed her support to fundraising. She is acknowledged among her peers as a skilled jeweler with a distinct aesthetic. Her work is unique and lyrical and demonstrates skill, sensitivity to materials, and knowledge of gemstones and metal working.”
Bréchault says it’s been a great year. VCC hired her as a jewelry instructor in September, 21 years after she studied there.
Each recipient of a Mayor’s Arts Award must choose an emerging artist to be recognized.
Bréchault chose jeweler Urszula Petrykowska of Zula Jewelry + Design. She’s well regarded by Bréchault’s colleagues at VCC, where Petrykowska, also an actor, studied silversmithing. Petrykowska uses objects she finds in nature such as leaves to create her pieces.
Other Mayor’s Arts Awards recipients include:
Eric Patement for culinary arts
Cari Green for film and new media
George Fetherling for literary arts
Myfanwy MacLeod for visual arts
Patti Fraser for community engaged arts
Karen Jamieson for dance
Peggy Lee for music
Patrick McDonald for theatre, and
Landscape architect Cornelia Hahn Oberlander for lifetime achievement.
The winner of the Vancouver Book Award will be announced at Science World tonight (Nov. 22). The finalists are:
Jancis M. Andrews for The Ballad of Mrs. Smith
Brad Cran for Ink on Paper
Amber Dawn for How Poetry Saved My Life
Harold Kalman and Robin Ward for Exploring Vancouver – The Architectural Guide, and Sean Kheraj for Inventing Stanley Park.
Bréchault has told her parents about the award.
“Everything I do, they say oh, yes, of course, we expected no less of you,” she said. “They’ve forgiven me for going to art school so it’s OK now.”
For a full list of recipients, go to the city’s website vancouver.ca.
