I first met Charlotte over the phone. She was my confirmation that Vermont College was really what it was claiming to be andthat I could continue my artwork while going there.
I told her of my life size sculpture of the newsboy for the state capitol in Austin and my documentation of it on my web site. “You are already doing what you would be doing here.” She assured me. I felt comfort in her words and they were the determining factor about my attendance at Vermont College.
Upon arriving to Vermont College last spring I searched for Charlotte. Those who attend residency know that it is required to meet with at least three other professors, I chose to meet with each one including Dick Hathaway. Dick told me that my study did not really go along with his expertise I knew he was correct, but I was too embarrassed to tell him that I thought he was charming and I just wanted to spend more time with him and that is why I was in his session. My study was Bringing to Life The spirit of the Deceased- A sculptor’s Journey, to which I am turning into a book. He politely gave me a book on the stonemasons in Vermont and insisted I visit Hope cemetery, which I did. That was my only exposure to Dick Hathaway.
It was understood from the very first meeting with Charlotte and I that I would be working with her. There was no question about it in either one of our minds. Sometimes you meet someone and something clicks and you wonder, “Did I know you before?” It felt like Charlotte and I had been intimate friends for a lifetime. The feeling was very mutual.
Charlotte thought my study was very intriguing. I wanted to turn it into a book and she was encouraging. Together for six months Charlotte and I explored death and art and the space between life and death, the possible spiritual connection and communication between my deceased subject and myself and the healing that the artwork brought to those left behind.
Through the semester we both seemed to overcome our own personal difficulties. Illness in her family bound us together as MD Anderson was in Houston where I live. And together we kept in touch as she fretted over our safety of Hurricane Rita and I came to terms with the possibility of my own death.
Through the semester she followed along as I documented the sculpting of Patsy, a women who had passed away of cancer. When the sculpture was complete she could not wait to see the photographs “I feel like I know Patsy through your writings.” She said.
She could not wait to see the photographs in bronze of Patsy or the process of the next posthumous sculpture Lucas, a boy who died in a swimming accident. As my new semester progressed I wanted to call her or e-mail her with photographs, but I knew she was ill. I had thought there would be time in the future.
Charlotte was my biggest fan and she had a way of making you feel like your artwork was more important than even you realized. My study of capturing the life of the deceased was not over with my semester and Charlotte and I agreed that we would both come back in the spring and she would be my culminating professor.
Charlotte also took care of me at residency last fall as I was gravely ill and ended up in the emergency room, which she insisted on. She stayed by my side, and told me all about her pain which she attributed to other ailments. I did not pursue her pain; maybe it was because I was pretty incoherent. I feel guilty about that now. I did not know that just a few weeks from then she would be the one in the hospital bed. She helped me through the residency rallied to my cause, and brought me food, medicine and magazines to read, though I could never read them and ended up sleeping the entire time I was alone. Her tenderness was incredible, her warmth a comfort. I wonder if her insistence of taking care of my abdominal pain was not somehow displaced and a projection of her concerns for herself?
When I think of the death of fellow artists my first inclination is, “What about the work that they were going to create.” It is a silly thought. If we only have so much time on this earth then we have already created everything we were supposed to.
It was at the last residency as we were all remembering Dick Hathaway that I went to Charlotte and asked. “My living is created by sculpting those who are no longer with us. Do you think it would be possible to leave to the school a sculpture of Dick Hathaway, I could do it as my culminating presentation?” Tears were in her eyes and she could hardly speak. Together we examined the possibility, which turned from a bust of dick to a life size bronze in the courtyard. Together we devised a plan of trying to inform others, raising the money for casting, and discussing it with the dean and Dick’s family. She wanted to see this happen. We met with Dick Hathaway’s wife. There Charlotte I intimately shared the first process of bringing to life the spirit of the deceased, a process that I go through over and over with each commission, meeting the family. We both cried.
$9,000 seemed like and enormous amount of money to try find to cover casting costs, but Charlotte felt we could do it. She was going to gather the photographs of Dick and obtain written approval from the family. She turned ill shortly after and I never did receive either. Part of me wants to abandon the entire project in grief. My connection to Vermont and Dick now gone, I feel so far away from it in Houston. How can I possibly do it on my own? Another part of me wants to do the sculpture and add something that is pertinent to Charlotte. Perhaps a note to her written by Dick or maybe the little carved elephant that she gave me at last residency. It was in remembrance of something I wrote about elephants being so attached to their deceased they would pick up the bones and caress them. I felt it was similar to what I do with my sculpture. She knew the importance of that image and enforced it with a gift. It feels good to know I have something from Charlotte.
Though I am trying to sort through my own grief and the selfishness of my own loss. Though we had just met I felt like I knew her forever. But I was looking forward to a long relationship. As one person said, “ I did not get enough of her. “
I think Charlotte would still like the sculpture of Dick Hathaway, I think she will be with me as I create it. I looked over her notes from last semester. She commented on a quote from Robinson’s Beautiful Death “Grief needs to be ritualized to be effective.”
Her memory is the encouragement for me in my creating. In finishing the writing of Bringing to Life the Spirit of the Deceased -a Sculptor’s Journey and the hope of the life size sculpture of Dick Hathaway. I hope to culminate this fall and wish that she were there with me, but then maybe she will be.
Thank you charlotte for the inspiration and support. I love you .
