At Home with Pat Pink

The Gazette's Max Harrold has a Shelter profile of Montreal art gallery owner Pat Pink with photos by Marie-France Coallier. It's well worth the look-see on the Gazoo's web site, or if you want to cut to the chase right here
Pink purchased a rundown building on St. Jacques St. in Little Burgundy in 1997 to use as a gallery space and home.
I'm a big fan of Pat Pink's. Love her can-do spirit, her eye for art and her quirky sense of humor. But it must be said, she's the kind of person who makes my life as an agent difficult, what with paying $30,000 or some such for a property.
Here's the deal people. You can still buy buildings for not much money - but you have to be prepared to put the time, cash and elbow grease into transforming them into dream homes. Pink invested tens of thousands of dollars of sweat equity to create the fabulous space she owns today. Those aren't the only challenges. Read on to learn about the rubbies who like to urinate and pass out in the environs of Pink's building.
Everyone's a downtown boho, until the pee starts flying, then it's "Maybe I'd be better off in a building with 24-hour security."
Chacun à son goût!
Here's my last Pat Pink story. She's probably forgotten, but I never have. Back in the early days of my reporting career, The Gazette sent me to do a page-brightening story on a break-in at Galerie Pink. It seems a drunk forced his way in during the night and smashed up an exhibition of wooden bears carved by a Quebec chainsaw artist. Faced with ursine carnage, Pink bandaged up the broken bears - one had his front limb in a sling and a bandage around his head. Hilarious. She sold tons of the pieces, so the story had a more of less happy ending.
I too bought one of the bears. We call him Swinging Bear. He weighs about 40 lbs and sits on a rope and plank swing hanging from a branch of a tamarack tree in my back yard. That's him in the picture.