“Memory is a great artist. For every man and for every woman it makes the recollection of his or her life a work of art, and an unfaithful record.”
– Andre Maurois (26 Jul 1885 – 9 Oct 1967)
In the spring of 1982 before moving to Portsmouth, NH, I met Lincoln Perry at the Portsmouth Community Center, where a drawing group met weekly – Wednesdays if I recollect – in a well-lit large room on the second floor, to draw the live model, usually female. Early on I noticed Lincoln’s excellent drawing skills treating the human figure; he also recognized mine, and we became friends. Through him I met a number of other artists in the Portsmouth area: sculptor Kate Suchmann, her husband painter Bruno Civitico, watercolorists Dewitt and Pat Hardy, painters George and Dadee Burke, painter Peter Agrafiotis – and through him, Heidi R., who is featured in these drawings. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s Lincoln giving Heidi a quick back-rub in the sketchy drawing above, from one of our drawing sessions when he lived with me in the spring of ’85, but I get ahead of myself…
Spring ’82: At the time Lincoln and I met, he was living in Ogunquit, Maine, just off Route 1, south of the Wells town-line. His partner Wendy owned a clothing store in downtown Ogunquit named Fair Skies. I was living a little further south in Cape Neddick in a small winter-rental cottage next to the Weiser publishing compound, very close to where Peter Agrafiotis was living, although I did not meet him until several months after meeting Lincoln; by which time I was living in Portsmouth. Thanks to Lincoln’s encouragement I started drawing
frequently again. To keep a roof over my head and food in my stomach I worked a 9-5 job as Art Director for Samuel Weiser Inc., but more of my free time was spent drawing regularly with Lincoln: at his home in Ogunquit, plus two other drawing groups he introduced me to; one in Portsmouth, the other in North Berwick, Maine, as well as the group at the Portsmouth Community Center where we first met. I hadn’t drawn from the human figure since taking some classes at the Art Students’ League in NYC in ’73-’74, so this four-year period ’82-’86 living in Portsmouth helped bring my drawing-live chops back up to speed, after getting a bit rusty during the years when my creative focus had been primarily commercial, not requiring a lot of life-drawing skill: highly-stylized fashion illustrations, then book-cover graphic design.
1984 was probably the year I first met Heidi R. through painter Peter Agrafiotis; they were having a May/September affair that lasted into the fall. A student at UNH, Heidi and I connected well from the first time we met at Peter’s. Shortly thereafter, she started modeling on a regular basis for Lincoln; sessions in which I was included, so we got to know each other better. Eventually, Heidi and Peter parted company, as did Lincoln and Wendy; I lost track of both Heidi and Lincoln temporarily. She moved to Durham, NH, close to the university, and he relocated to New York.
Sometime in the spring of ’85 Lincoln and I ran into each other in town, most likely at the Cafe Petronella, a bar/restaurant on State Street frequented by many of the area’s artists. He was back in town working on a commission for one of the large insurance companies, having set himself up in a good-sized studio at the Button Factory, one of the first of the repurposed old factories in the area turned into studio spaces, where he was camping out as well. By then I had moved into larger digs on Hanover Street – a five-room, second-floor apartment with a spare room which was virtually empty. I offered Lincoln use of the room as his crash-pad for the duration of the commission project; he gratefully accepted.
So Lincoln and I shared a living space for about three months in 1985. It was most likely during this time that Heidi and I reconnected, presumably because Lincoln got in touch with her, so that she was soon thereafter modeling for us, as evidenced by several of these drawings, particularly at the top of this posting. The sketch of the clothed waitress was definitely done for the mural commission Lincoln was working on. When he left town again, Heidi stayed in touch and wound up modeling for myself and painter Robert Boardman on occasion. Tomorrow, the story continues with more drawings using other mediums…
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