On Saturday morning, over 800 artists met under the live oaks in Forsyth Park to draw. Each artist was given one square of sidewalk, one box of chalk and three hours–the rest was up to them. The Sidewalk Chalk Festival is hosted by the Savannah College of Art and Design, so the quality is astounding. Undergrads, grad students, high school hopefuls, alumni, faculty all drawing their hearts out as we stroll by or picnic on the grass. In the mid-afternoon, judges judge, prizes are awarded, thousands and thousands of pictures are snapped. Then as the sun sets, it’s all washed away. It’s just chalk, after all.
Jose Luis Silva spent the day drawing a portrait of our friend, Spencer Cox, who died in December. Luis had been working on the portrait for an hour when we showed up. The grinning mug that he had summoned to life there on the sidewalk was already stopping traffic. People paused silently to watch him work with just black chalk, white chalk, his fingers and a watery brush.
Luis paused long enough to share hugs with me, with Brantley, with Jill. We three had loved Spencer when he was a bold boy at Governor’s Honors and again as a wizened man. In the interim years, most of us were unaware of Spencer’s work to get AIDS drugs approved by the FDA. He had disappeared on us during those New York years. At his memorial in January, many of Spencer’s dearest friends had commented on his chimeric habit of disappearing, of slipping away then reappearing years later. We started saying goodbye to Spencer when he was diagnosed with AIDS in the early 1990s. Hell, Spencer was supposed to have been dying for twenty years but he never did. Then he did. It was hard to believe he was gone gone.
Thanks to the work that Spencer did to get protease inhibitors approved by the FDA, eight million people around the world are living with AIDS today. Living. Today. Yet he’s gone. I can’t find words for the….irony? Pathos? Tragedy? I can’t, so I’ll quote from Peter Staley’s eulogy, “Grief Is a Sword”:
Eight million people on standardized regimens. Eight million lives saved. It’s a stunning legacy, and so bittersweet. How could that young gay man, confronted with his own demise, respond with a level of genius that impacted millions of lives but failed to save his own? This death hit us hard. We have grappled to make sense of it. Why did he stop his meds? What role did his struggle with crystal meth play? Was this a failure of community? Are there lessons we can learn?The first lesson for me has been about impermanence–Spencer is gone. Yes, it was complicated. Yes, he did great things with his genius. Yes, he did horrible things to his health. Yes, we can learn things from his life. Yes, there are things we will never know. No. He is gone.
But there he was again, emerging from the sidewalk beneath Luis’ fingertips. Luis drew the figure first. Then he added texture to the shirt and the hands. He added highlights. A couple of strokes from a stick of chalk and the distinctive patch of white in Spencer’s beard came back to us. A little bit of chalk dust and there was my friend.
When he was diagnosed with AIDS in his early 20s, it seemed foolish to dream of living to 30. Miraculously, he made it to 44. It was still miraculous for a man with AIDS who had survived the plague years to die at the advanced age of 44; it was still tragic for a man in this day to die of AIDS at 44 when drugs are able to offer many more years.
Luis surrounded his black and white portrait with a vibrant pink and purple background. Colors are never as simple as “pink” and “purple.” It took yellow and brown and gray to make the pink and purple work.
He added Spencer’s name and the years of his birth and death in the top left corner. That’s when the passersby started asking each other, “Who is that?” In the top right corner, Luis added a red ribbon for compostional balance. Once they saw the red ribbon, fewer people asked who Spencer was. Oh, AIDS. Another one bites the dust.
The dust. Saturday’s weather couldn’t have been more pleasant–warm spring sun, dappled shade, light breeze. Even in that idyllic climate, every motion–from the breeze to the sighs of careful crowds–took its toll on Luis’ creation. Near the end of his three hours of allotted drawing time, he turned to me and said, “That’s the thing about chalk. I use the water to make it stick better, but the face is already changed from when I drew it. Just in a few hours.” His hand fluttered between the photocopied picture of Spencer that ran with the New York Times obituary and the chalk portrait there on the ground before us. Chalk art changes as you make it. It can’t be anything but impermanent.
When Luis declared that he was done, we sat under the oaks and we didn’t talk about Spencer. We played with the tired baby. We drank beer and iced coffees. We sent the big kids on errands. We packed up and headed home at a sensible hour, like grown ups do.
I wonder what it would have felt like to stay there until the park emptied out and the cleaning crew came through with their hoses. I wonder what it would have meant to me to watch that patch of white in Spencer’s beard wash away into nothing as it joined with everything around it.
An artist creates a portrait that changes as he draws. A musician plays a note that fades at the same instant it is born. Eight million people breathe in; eight million people breathe out and the dust shifts around them. Before we can know a thing, it has moved on.
Often, you make me think. Today, you made me think AND cry. The kind of cry that makes you cleaner, somehow, than before. I miss Spencer and everything he was and is and always will be, in my mind and in my heart. That is what makes the impermanent permanent – when we carry it with us, inside us, as part of us.
Hell, this one makes me cry!
Yes.
Wow. Same place, seeing the same thing but such different experiences. As usual your eloquent words honor both the experience and your old friends (and humble some new ones).
Every one of us walks a different path, even on the same sidewalk.
Well said.
wow….don’t have words. Just wow.
What a day. That chalk portrait summed up so much–nothing to touch, nothing to hold on to–wonderful, amazing, and gone. The day was such a whirlwind. I’m stuck–I’ve got so much more to feel but not the words to express any of it. There is nothing like abiding love, a friendship of weathered years and nothing worse than being left behind. I cannot imagine my life untouched by yours.
I hear you and I love you.
Jill’s Friend’s Mom (from Wesleyan Reunion)…………..I can’t read this post without thinking of Emily Dickinson’s beautiful line, “that it will never come again is what makes life sweet…..”. Loving your blog
That’s a beautiful line, Mary Ann!
What Luis captured in chalk, you capture in prose: the beauty of a determined, yet tortured, soul…and the depth of real, true friendship. I never met Spencer…and even I feel like I knew him. Thank you…to you and Luis for the gift of your artistry.
Thank you. I hadn’t looked at it that way yet!
I always love what you write. Sometimes I *really* love what you write. This one goes into the really, really love column. You are such a gifted writer. Moving, touching, well thought out, and each story is like a snippet of an interconnected story.
Thanks! Pass it along if you think others might enjoy it.
Ashley. This. Precious. A beautiful tribute.
Thanks. It’s good to have the words.
The beauty of your writing makes me sigh…
Thanks! Luis and I had an interesting conversation about portraiture–he sees it as just replication and isn’t all that impressed by his own skill. That makes me jaw hang open. But writing is like that too. It’s just telling what happened but the links a writer makes are what brings the story alive.
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Sigh. . . your words leave me without any. So beautifully written.
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Like others have already said, this post leaves me without words that are adequate to say how it touches my heart.
Thank you. I have been lucky to cross paths with so many interesting people…like you!
I know when it is done at this wonderful art events, it does get washed away. But it gives so much to the community and is so colorful and fun which to me is so much worth it. Thanks for sharing. Will you go to another chalk festival soon?
Absolutely! We’re going to make it a yearly event.
You should come out to San Diego sometimes and see all the chalk contests we have out here. So colorful! http://www.segmation.wordpress.com
I’ll have to put Savannah’s festival on my list for next year. Been to the one down in Lake Worth, FL, but since I’ve move back north, Savannah is closer. Great tribute to losing a friend
The SCAD festival is free and in a beautiful location. I highly recommend it! If you’ve never been to Savannah, it’s a great time of year to plan a longer visit around the art.
Oh, I’d definitely plan to stay more than a day. Thanks for the reply!
Great read.
Thanks, Sean! Is that an old-school Falcons cap in your avatar?
Actually, it’s the new logo, but good catch anyway!
You seem to be a brilliant story teller. It feels like I know Spencer already and just then I realize maybe I should’ve known him.
He was a real piece of work! So funny and charming and larger than life.
that a chalk drawing? waoo!!
Luis is a genius with any art medium he touches!
This was emotional. I did not know about Spencer, or his story. I did not know that out there, a man did what Jesus did with his bread and wine: He shared it with thousands, and suffered for it himself. It`s always hard to handle when love one dies, and even harder when loved ones who really gave everything for others, leave us. I hope in some way, he felt warmed by the many lives he enlightend.
I hope he did, too. I really do.
Lovely blog. LMK if you would like to be friends. 🙂
Such beautiful sentiments. Your last paragraph is so true and touching. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you! We drive ourselves crazy trying to hold on to things, good and bad.
Beautiful and touching.I simply love this blog! And your friend, peace be with him.
Thank you. I hope Spencer is sitting next to Bette Davis wherever he ended up!
wow this was amazing, solely amazing
Reblogged this on myselfthroughwriting and commented:
creativity + emotion = greatness
Reblogged this on myselfthroughwriting and commented:
creativity + emotion = greatness
thanks for the reblog!
You’re welcome 🙂
“Before we can know a thing, it has moved on.” – such a true truth. an amazing post and it strikes a chord. loved it, congratulations!
Thank you!
A beautiful tribute to your friend and a gentle reminder to us, the living: life is brief, make the most of each passing day.
Thank you for sharing this with us and congratulations on being FP’d.
Allan
Exactly. “this too shall pass” applies to EVERY day, good and bad.
I have to admit that the art is really awesome..
Luis is a genius! His main work is in animation and computer art, so it’s always a great surprise when he works in a more traditional medium and is STILL astounding.
Baddest Mother Ever, (late) Spencer Cox, Jose Luis Silva, Darren, Pat
I salute you… Hopefully we can all learn from you!
Peace to Darren and Pat.
That post was magnificent. I think everything I wanted to say has already been said, but I want to tell you, even though so many others already have, that you painted a beautiful story; as beautiful as Luis’s chalk drawing. I can picture it because of the way you wrote it, and because we have friends who live in Savannah and we have walked those sidewalks together many times. Great post.
Thank you, Leslie Jo. Tell your friends to mail you a box of pralines from River Street Sweets!
Those are THE BEST!!!!
I like picking them right off the marble slab and eating them while they’re still warm in the center!
I didnt know Spencer Cox before reading this, but it was so evocative, I feel like I knew him and quite sad at his death. Very well written …
Thank you. He was well worth knowing.
Beautiful, and such a moving testament of a fallen friend.
RIP Spencer Cox. AIDS may have caused your death, but it didn’t rule your life.
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