Sunday, July 10, 2016

Genevieve


I really really don't want to have to gather my thoughts about this. My friend is gone.

Over the last year she would deflect the question she kept getting about whether she was "still working". Her answer was, basically, "no" She was too tired, too spent, too preoccupied with trying to live. But I was able to visit her at home twice in the year that she was sick and both times there were many bits and pieces of half-finished and carefully crafted things everywhere you looked. She was still working. She couldn't have stopped if she'd tried, I don't think. But she changed her tune (at least to me) a month or two ago, determined to bring art back into her life (I didn't mention that it seemed to me like it never left). Last week as I was packing up my life to move to Portland, I got a text from her with this image, along with one of her desk, strewn with others like it. She was working until the end. She was one of the most impressive people I've ever known. I can't believe she's gone.