Dinner with Rebecca and Betty Lou

It was Betty Lou’s birthday last week so Rebecca and I took her out for pizza and beer last night - that’s BL’s favorite kind of dinner. We would have taken her anywhere for anything but BL is a pizza and beer kinda’gal - even at 72. Of all the things I have done in my life, having BL as a friend for eight years now is way high up on the list. We don’t always agree on everything but she is someone I respect – for her generosity and her intelligence and her amazing talent.

I knew about BL a long time before I met her. Before I ever moved to Gloucester I purchased Painting with Light by Betty Lou Schlemm and it is one of the finest books on watercolor available. Once I lived here I would see her name in the paper from time to time but it wasn’t until I volunteered to work at the Gloucester City Hall Sculpture Show in 1998 that I actually met her. I had been told that there would be two volunteers working at the desk and when a tall, pretty woman with a wild mass of curly dark hair showed up and introduced herself as Betty Lou Schlemm I was about speechless.

For months we spent four hours on Sunday afternoons welcoming the many visitors to that beautiful exhibition. It was then that I met Rebecca Reynolds as well. Along with Daniel Altshuler, she was the co-curator of that exhibition. I’m still unclear how it all happened but somehow I got drawn into their fascinating circle and we have all stayed friends since. We’ve worked on two exhibitions since then – The Manship Retrospective in 1999, and the George Aarons Exhibition in 2003. Rebecca and I collaborated on the exhibition books and BL and I have also worked together on Legacy: The Artistic Families of the North Shore Arts Association in 2001 and Remembrance: A Tribute in 2002. BL convinced me to begin painting again after years of not touching a brush and I was a member of her watercolor workshops for six years. My life has been immeasurably enriched by these two ladies.

So last night we met for dinner which was great and talk which was sublime. The conversation always varies when we are together but it is always delicious. I brought up the Edge question about Dangerous Ideas that I wrote about in yesterday’s blog and we were off. I’m not sure how it happened but somehow the issue of moral imperative, what is the duty of a moral person when confronted with a painful situation, transformed into a discussion of the latest Harry Potter book. BL has a very intriguing theory as to why Snape killed Dumbledor which she explained while Rebecca sat with her fingers in her ears – she hasn’t gotten to the end of the book yet.

I love Harry Potter – it is the classic hero’s journey. As much as Joseph Campbell loved Star Wars, I think he would have adored Harry Potter. When the hero embarks upon his journey, it is with the unpleasant understanding that he will lose everything – all his touchpoints will be stripped away – before he finds his core and triumphs. All three of us – BL, Rebecca, and I – believe we are on that path. It isn’t easy and sometimes it is frightening but it is a journey, once begun, that you cannot step away from. Jesus said we must lose ourselves to find ourselves. It’s been that way from Jason and his Argonauts to Luke Skywalker, from Sir Gawain to Harry. David Copperfield begins his story by wondering if he will be the hero of his own life – and so it is for us all.

I am blessed. I have good travelling companions on this path. BL is taking a break from painting and teaching for awhile until she feels ready to begin again in a new direction, Rebecca has left her job at the MFA, Boston to finish her doctoral dissertation on Anna Hyatt Huntington and is setting out on a new phase of her life as an art historian and curator. I have left the corporate world and earn my living as a graphic artist while I devote my energies to writing. All of us are unsure of the future but know one thing – we have one another. And that is a very wonderful thing.

Thanks for reading.