In the Company of Like Minds

Every autumn when the North Shore Arts Association closes for the season there is a group of us that says, “Now this winter we are going to get together!” While the NSAA is open we see a lot of each other at openings and receptions and other functions, but once that wonderful old building closes we all seem to crawl back in our holes for the winter. This year, however, has been a delicious exception. In January, B.L. and I decided we would designate Tuesday evenings as get-together nights. We let people know that we would be at our favorite Italian restaurant at a specific time and if they showed up, fine, if not, we’d be there anyway. We have stuck with this.

Sometimes it is just the two of us but gradually more and more people have started joining us and the evenings are just plain wonderful. Last night five of us spent four hours over one antipasto, two pizzas and two bottles of wine. The conversation was exceptional.

In addition to our involvement in the arts, all of us are writers and, more importantly, all of us are very involved with community projects. It is the latter which always seems to be the topic of conversation. I actually met B.L. when she and I volunteered at the Gloucester City Hall Sculpture Show. I met Evelyn by being involved in the Frederick Mulhaupt Retrospective and Symposium. Leslie I got to know through her wonderful Know Your Neighbor evenings and Jane and Leslie and I started the Hovey House Writer’s Group. All of them are brilliant women with endless talents and intelligence and a strong commitment to contributing to our community.

Last night part of the conversation concerned an upcoming fund-raiser for the Essex Shipbuilding Museum in Essex. It is lovely little museum that honors Essex’s distinguished heritage of building the fishing schooners that fished most of the east coast for generations. The museum is desperately in need of funds. Jane and Evelyn have a plan and, as they explained the details, the rest of us grew increasingly excited about it. This is going to be an incredible event!

I’ve often joked that when a group of artists (whenever I say “artists” I mean painters, writers, musicians, actors, etc.) get together and start talking about ideas it is rather like the old Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney movies where they say, “Hey, kids! Let’s put on a show!” Everybody gets excited, everybody has an area in which they can contribute something, everybody puts their ideas in and, in the end, something wonderful usually results.

It was B.L. who started such an event in the summer of 2002 when the entire country was reeling from the attack of September 11 the previous year. She said we needed to create a multi-disciplinary arts event to honor the heroes of that day. It turned out to be an extraordinary event with a moving art exhibition and a performance that people still talk about all these years later featuring artists in all fields — dancers Carl Thomsen and Ina Hahn, poets Vincent Ferrini and SueEllen Wedmore, actress Nan Webber, musicians Herb Pomeroy and the Egmont Trio. It was a day I’ll never forget. And it all began when B.L. said, “We should do something.”

Of all the things I love about being in the company of creative spirits it is that their creativity seems boundless. Last night we talked and talked, we talked about art and our lives and the things we love and our shared love of Cape Ann where all of us have gathered from other parts of the country because it is just plain glorious to be here. It was nearly 10 when I got home.

I can’t wait for next Tuesday.

Thanks for reading.