Last October, Lee Rose stood before a large crowd of business and community leaders brought together to champion the cause of mental health. With courage, he opened up about losing his partner, Charles-Eric Laperrière, to suicide.
The event was The Royal’s Leaders for Mental Health Breakfast.
In sharing his story, Rose included some of Laperrière’s artistic sketches as visual aids, to give his audience of 750 greater insight. Rose had navigated over the course of three years a complex mental health journey with his partner, affectionately known as “Charlot”. It included psychiatry, therapy, medication and hospitalization.
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This past Friday, friends and family came together at the Ottawa Art Gallery to mark the one-year anniversary since Laperrière, 31, tragically took his own life in the sanctuary of his studio in Gatineau. He died April 21, 2023.
Rose announced his financial support for a wellness workshop for mental health that’s run at the OAG in partnership with The Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre. Lee is also the manager of community engagement at TD Bank.
The $3,100 grant was made through the Charles-Eric Laperrière Memorial Fund that Rose created last year and also contributed to. Additional donations from friends, family members, colleagues and anonymous donors allowed the fund to grow to nearly $35,000.
The memorial fund is gifting another $3,100 to a community organization in Laperrière’s home city of Rouyn-Noranda in northern Quebec. The non-profit, Le Pont, provides a range of supports for people and caregivers living with mental illness.
OAG board chair Mark Schaan, senior assistant deputy minister at Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, took to the podium to express his gratitude for the gift. Said Schaan: “It’s really wonderful to have the opportunity to engage and to connect and to further the work that we do here as it relates to finding beauty, wellness and a place for mental health through art.”
The room briefly heard from Michael Davidge, who, as manager of learning and engagement at the gallery, could attest to the sense of belonging and well-being the Creative Space program provides to participants through the weekly drop-in art-making workshops.
About that big mental health breakfast that Rose spoke at last year. “After, several people came up to me and asked me about Charlot’s artworks, and if I had plans to share them more broadly,” he explained. “Until that moment, I hadn’t really considered it.”
Rose reached out to the OAG to learn more about the process of artistic reproductions, and subsequently worked with OAG commercial curator Stephanie Germano, Sam Hopkins, owner of fine art printing and photograph restoration service Shoebox Studio, and Gesso & Bole custom-framer Michael Renouf.
“Thank you for helping me bring this little idea that I had in my head to life so beautifully,” Rose told his collaborators at the podium.
All sales of enlarged prints of Self Portrait are being directed to the memorial fund. There are 31 prints (one for each year of Laperrière’s life). The project has been “a labour of love and advocacy” for Rose.
Self Portrait, created with ink on paper, depicts the frenzy, beauty and fragility of the mind of a person living with mental illness. Laperrière had told Rose: “This is what it’s like inside my head all the time.”
Laperrière had previously left the hospitality industry, realizing the hours, stress and substances that often came with it weren’t healthy for him. He worked in landscaping, which improved his mental health, said Rose. “When words failed him, he often turned to art to express his feelings … I’m so grateful for Charles’s sketchbooks, for the doodles, the rambles, the lists, and the illustrations within each of them,” said Rose, calling them his “beautiful reminders”.
Self-Portrait will be on display in the OAG’s Annex Gallery during Mental Health Week, from May 6 to 12, and is being included in the gallery’s signature fundraiser, Give to Get Art Auction, on Thursday, May 16.
Also available is Heavy Heart, another one of Laperrière’s original works, reproduced from a sketch done by the artist.
Since Friday, an additional $12,000 has been raised for the memorial fund, with more donations and sales continuing to come through.
Lee shared that, in any given year, one in five Canadians experience a mental illness, and the equivalent of 12 people die by suicide each day. At least 20 per cent of people with a mental illness have a co-occurring substance use disorder, and for people with schizophrenia, the number may be as high as 50 per cent.
Attendees included Chris Ide, president of the Royal Ottawa Foundation for Mental Health. Also seen were Liz Cleland, managing director of community and coworking space Impact Hub Ottawa, SPAO Photographic Art Centre creative director Jonathan Hobin, Andrea MacLean, director of communications at CHEO, and Chris Cowperthwaite from OCAD (Ontario College of Art & Design) University in Toronto.
Rose’s 15-year-old daughter Michaela Rose, a student of Philemon Wright High School in Gatineau, told attendees how much Laperrière had meant to her. They often drew and painted together while chitchatting.
“That’s how our relationship really grew,” she explained. “I loved spending this time with him because it helped me develop my own arts skills, as well as the chance to spend time with one of the most important people in my life.
“I often find that drawing and art are ways for me to express myself and to work through my feelings.”
Next to the speakers was a framed photo of Laperrière.
Everyone was invited into the lobby afterward to raise a glass, whether it was filled with bubbly, sparkling water or Laperrière’s favourite – a shot of Jameson Irish Whiskey.
