It already feels like summer, although that designation won’t officially come until this weekend, June 21. Hot, hazy, humid, all miserable. As I shut my windows and turned on the air, I silently thanked Eric and Julius Lowe for about the millionth time for installing those splits some hot summers ago. They have saved my life and made it bearable.
Through the miracle of technology, I was able to watch Megan Mendenhall performing in a concert with the Back Bay Ringers last Saturday evening. The program at the First Baptist Church, Worcester, included pieces for organ and bells. One, “Sonata in the Baroque Style,” was composed by Michael Hillman, specially to be debuted at this concert.
Friends of the Up-Island Council on Aging will host a fundraiser at the P.A. Club on Saturday, June 20, 5 to 8 pm. The UICOA supports programs for older adults, purchase of medical equipment they loan out, and emergency financial assistance. Come for music, great food, a silent auction, and to support an organization that does a lot of good in our community.
Martha’s Vineyard Museum will present a debate, “Revolution in Words: A Patriot versus Loyalist Showdown” on June 22, 5 to 6 pm. The Loyalist perspective will be represented by Mary Beth Norton, Mary Donlan Alger Professor Emerita of American History at Cornell University, author of several books about the Revolutionary War, most recently “1774: The Long Year of Revolution,” and West Tisbury resident. Arguing for American patriots will be Patrick Spero, chief executive officer of the American Philosophical Society, also an author and historian of the Revolutionary War period.
Don’t forget that the library and town offices will be closed this Friday for Juneteenth. Melissa Knowles will be at the library on Saturday, June 20, 9:30 to 11:30 am, taking free Father’s Day photographs for dads, granddads, caregivers, and loved ones. Children’s librarian Hannah will hold the Wednesday, June 24, storytime at the Farmers Market, 10:30 am.
I want to write about a dear friend, Marie-Louise Rouff, who died on May 13. We met when she walked into my gallery in 1989 carrying a portfolio of small landscape paintings, clearly landscapes, but striding the line between recognizable and abstraction. I loved them, and over the years of our friendship, we grew to love one another. Her paintings became more nonrepresentational, more intuitive, more strongly colored. They were/are mostly large enough to envelop a viewer with their power and poetry.
I looked back at an article I wrote about Marie-Louise in 2015 Arts & Ideas. Do look it up. It shows her as I will always see her in my mind, a tiny woman with white hair brushed out of her way, wearing a painting apron and a determined look, the “art look” she wore when she painted or talked about art.
She was 93 when she died. All of our artist friends are devastated. It seemed she would go on forever. She will, in her paintings, and in her interactions with other artists.
One of my major paintings was of Marie-Louise and her husband, Paul Levine, another character to be lauded for his brilliant mind, creative in a different way. My painting is called “The Dinner Party,” showing them in my dining room after dinner with Mike and me. They had decided to move back to the Island, bought a house in town. It had a little outbuilding that would become her studio and gallery. Mike would refurbish both to their requirements. He would come home with stories of Marie-Louise lugging canvases or building supplies like a stevedore, marveling at her strength and stamina. It takes a lot to impress my husband.
I have one of her small paintings on the wall opposite our bed. It is the first and the last thing I see every day.
