by VINCENT TINGUELY

If you have any contact with Montreal’s grassroots arts scene, chances are you’ve encountered Shawnda Wilson’s work. If you managed to miss her acrylic and oil paintings, if you were oblivious to her gorgeous hand-stitched poetry chapbooks, you still might’ve caught her drumming at the recent Blend in Blind In improv music events, or taking third prize at the Dreaming in Kodachrome Super 8 festival for “Gusto Bitch,” a short film she did with Zoe Brown. For Wilson, it’s all about meeting and working with other creative people.

“Making art is like a resistance movement against everything I don’t believe in, everything that I don’t agree with in society,” she explains. “Just starting, you just do stuff by yourself, and then because you’re doing it, you meet other people who are doing it, and then it grows and grows.”

Wilson’s presence in the spoken word scene springs from chapbooks. “I had so many things collected and I wanted to clean the slate,” Wilson says. “So I did the first chapbook, and then people were saying, ‘You should come and read.’ I had really terrible stage fright, so it was a challenge for myself.” Her latest collection, Superstar, sold out in an afternoon at Expozine, but you can check out some of her words in issue seven of Four Minutes to Midnight, which she collaborated on with John Stuart and Kevin Lo. “We just started writing back and forth by e-mail and Kevin mastered the stream of consciousness and the graphic design. I felt blessed to be a part of their project, but I feel like that so often,” Wilson says.

Keep up with Wilson’s words and pics at www.tiamatrising.blogspot.com; she’s looking for experimental musicians to jam with at www.myspace.com/girlfriendfromhell; and watch out for her in Daniel Bitton’s forthcoming film, Moanin’.