Container of mixed cement in one hand, an orange cone in the other and a tiny mosaic depicting an owl in her pocket, Laurence Petit heads off to execute her favourite outdoor pastime: inserting her art into city sidewalk cracks.

Her burgeoning core of fans calls her La Fée des Trottoirs (The Sidewalk Fairy). For good reason. She is seeking to make Montreal more beautiful one sidewalk crack at a time, and she is slowly but surely succeeding.

On this magical sunlit morning, Petit has found a beckoning sidewalk crack in the Mercier—Hochelaga-Maisonneuve borough, not far from her home.

Before she could begin her sidewalk work a few days earlier, Petit had to head back to her studio with proper dimensions to determine what shape and what kind of tile would best befit this crack. She decided upon an owl mosaic, which took five arduous hours of mechanical and technical work to put together.

Now down on her knees over the sidewalk, Petit proceeds to clean up the crack. Next comes the laying down of the cement.

Finding the right crack with the right proportions is paramount to the process. But the cement is key to the installation. Her tiles must be able to weather sidewalk snowplows, not to mention heavy foot traffic. After much experimentation, Petit feels she has hit on a solid cement formula.

She gently places the owl mosaic in the crack and will wait about an hour for the cement to dry. To ensure that no damage can come to this mosaic — like a garbage truck on the street veering close to the sidewalk crack — she places her trusty orange cone, with some fresh flowers protruding from the top, over the spot. The cone is emblazoned with another of her nicknames, Gogo Frisette, although she prefers La Fée des Trottoirs.

Time consuming as the........

© Montreal Gazette