Today I finally met her. Shirley B. Arnold. The painter. I’ve been waiting for five years…
In 1992, Shirley met with Millard Fuller, the founder of Habitat for Humanity. He gave her a canvas sack full of tools and clothes — tools that Jimmy Carter had used and clothes that Jimmy Carter had worn. These were Carter’s items from the fourth Jimmy Carter Work Project, the “Miracle on 19th Street” held in 1987 in Charlotte, NC. Shirley has always been a fan of President Carter’s, and wanted to paint a still life of these items. Actually, she really wanted to paint something from his desk, but I suspect his Habitat tools were easier to come by.
She didn’t know what to do with the tools, and the bag sat relatively untouched in her studio for two months. She finally started taking them out and playing with them, chose carefully and put some back, arranged some others and added a drape, and started painting “The Humanitarian’s Handtools.”
Shirley has been a painter in Georgia for decades, and has a painting hanging in the Georgia Museum of Art in Atlanta. She paints still lifes (lives?) using a single source of light in a darkened room. To me, “The Humanitarian’s Handtools” is a still life that has energy, while expressing the dormancy of tools that come alive one week a year. I’m not very artsy, but I just love it.
So, in 2006, when I was raising money for Buffalo Habitat before the JCWP in India, I discussed my project with my friend Bob. Bob is Shirley’s brother, so the painting came up, and so did that fact that she had 1,500 lithographs made of it to sell. As I mentioned in a previous post, I purchased 100 of them, planned to drive to Atlanta to pick them up to avoid a complicated shipping adventure on Shirley’s end, but then lost touch with Shirley altogether. Bob and I would run into each other over the years and say we’d get together on Shirley’s new address, and then fall out of touch until we ran into each other again.
Enter Facebook — because of a comment someone made on FB, I looked for Bob again. This time, there he was. I made contact, and he said, “We have posters for you in Atlanta!” You know how things are meant to be? Shirley now lives a convenient drive up the 400 from my friend Sue, with whom I stay when I’m in Atlanta. And I have another Habitat fundraiser I’m working on. Ta-dah!
I thought of other ways to get the lithographs besides driving down to pick them up. Believe me. I’ve spent too much time away from my dog already. But driving down to ATL seemed like the answer. Plus, then I could bring Sue cases of Canadian beer that you can’t get down there, and anything else any of my relocated friends wanted. I loaded up at Consumer Beverage on Tuesday evening, and left Buffalo at 4 a.m. on Wednesday morning. I had a book on tape that was absolutely depressing, but it kep me company on the 14-hour drive. I made Atlanta by sunset.
The next day I drove to Shirley’s, grâce à GPS. I don’t use the telephone so I had sent Shirley a letter outlining my plan in August. She doesn’t get her mail too often (we have that in common), so it took a while to get a reply. I received information through e-mail from two of her friends, Donna and Gisele, and we finally set a time and date: Thursday at 1.00. We spent a wonderful few hours together — Shirley showed me her paintings and her studio, Gisele and I talked about the differences between French and Québecois and Creole. Donna couldn’t make it but was consulted by telephone about the lithographs, as they were all in on the project in the 1990s. There were a lot of laughs and a lot of stories, and flan, and even a little adventure as I’d left my lights on and had to be jumpstarted before I could get on my way. Yes, the time of Howard Hain giving me “Airhead of the Week” awards is past; the time of my being an airhead has not.
And now I have precious cargo: 100 lithographs, signed and numbered, carefully wrapped laying flat on the back seat. And one Artist’s Proof to bring to the Carter Center Friday morning, to see what we can do about getting Shirley’s painting hanging there where President Carter can see it. Stay tuned…
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| "The Humanitarian's Handtools" at the artist's home |
