A Painting for a Friend

Staff photo by Matthew Modono Bruce Davidson
of Boxborough puts the finishing touches on the
mural at the Concord Health Care Center.


Mural showcases neighbors' bond
By Chrissie Long
Thu May 31, 2007, 06:21 AM EDT
reprinted from the Beacon Newspaper and Online

CONCORD - Sitting in her wheelchair with her hands in her lap, Dorothy Priest looked up at a mural of blended flowers. Irises, daffodils, crocuses and lilacs cascaded through a gentle landscape enhanced by stone walls and grassy hills.

She had planted all of these flowers in her younger days. But now her aged fingers and tired knees couldn’t sink into the dirt to give the plants the care they needed.

Due to a neighbor’s love, the flowers from her garden on Homestead Lane came alive once again outside her bedroom door.

This time it wasn’t just the neighborhood that enjoyed the garden, but the hundreds of people who lived and worked at the Concord Health Care Center.

“I love just looking at it,” said Victoria Dehesa, as she pushed her father by the mural in a wheelchair. “It cheers the place up.”

A woman in a nurse’s uniform commented to no one in particular as she brushed by, “I just get so much pleasure out of seeing this every day.”

For the last several months, Boxborough resident Bruce Davidson, Priest’s long-time neighbor in Stow has been painting her a mural.

“Dorothy taught me a lot about planting flowers,” said Davidson, a professional landscape designer. “It was striking to me that she had loved the outdoors and she was not able to enjoy it living in the care center. I decided to paint her this mural because it would allow me to continuously visit her and it would remind her of the outdoors.”

With Dorothy looking on, Davidson spent that afternoon touching up the near-finished painting.

Their relationship began in 1983, when Davidson bought a house next to Priest’s on Homestead Lane. Davidson, who was 23 at the time, had no living grandparents and adopted Priest as a surrogate grandmother. He would empty her driveway of snow and visit with his two black labs. She would tell him stories and make him tea.

In 1998, Davidson left the neighborhood and moved up to Stow Road in Boxborough. Despite being miles apart from another, they remained neighbors in relationship. They continued their visits and long conversations over tea.

Davidson had moved to a home that had some history with Priest. When Priest’s father was walking in the rain to be married at Hill Road in Boxborough, he had stopped at Davidson’s home to ask for an umbrella.

Last August, Priest had to leave the neighborhood, too. Because of her failing health, she moved to the Concord Health Care Center. The distance between the neighbors grew, but they stayed in touch.

“She felt like family to me,” said Davidson, who continued to visit her. “She felt like what a neighbor should be. We were clearly from vastly different generations, but we found that we had one thing in common and that was our love for the outdoors.”

After several visits, Davidson decided to de-institutionalize the nursing home and make it more home-like for Priest.

Beginning in March, Davidson, a professional artist, began painting his neighbor a mural.

On the blank wall outside her room, Priest has watched the scenery unfold. It began with just pencil lines, and then the blue sky filled in followed by the slate-colored stonewalls and assortments of greens for the grass. Within weeks, a wholesome and picturesque mural greeted residents as they walked down the second-floor hallway.

“We can’t thank you enough for bringing Bruce to us,” activities director Valerie Jackson said, speaking into Priest’s ear. Standing up, Jackson said, “Just to watch this evolve has been incredible. It’s been well-received by residents — the interaction has been heartwarming.”

For Davidson, the process has been equally rewarding.
“This has been the single most satisfying event of my adult life,” he said, looking over the rim of his glasses, his brush poised to paint. “I could have done this in half the time, but it has been the process not the product that has been enjoyable.”

Throughout the hours he has spent in this busy hallway, he has learned the life story of many of the residents. He took one man to a Red Sox game, he smoked fine cigars with another while they discussed the Korean and Vietnam wars. He spoke with a woman named Olive, who went to Mass Art in 1925 and 1926 and drew a tulip into the painting.

“Having never done art in a public forum, I have never had the chance to interact with the people while I paint,” he said. “I am used to operating in a vacuum.”

As he was painting that Tuesday afternoon, a staff member complemented him on his work. Turning to face him, Davidson said, “I forgot. Was there something you wanted me to paint?” When the staff member hesitated, Davidson said, “C’mon, what do you want to see in this?”

He shrugged his shoulders in response: “A fisherman?”
With that, Davidson applied a small black spot to the shoreline in the upper quadrant of the painting.

The mural, originally called Dorothy’s mural, was quickly adopted by the entire nursing home. “It became a community mural,” Davidson said. With careful, but swift brushstrokes he added a purple heart in memory of the husband of a resident who had befriended him while he painted and had recently passed away, a border collie in response to one patients’ request and birds for the names of each of the floors in the home.

Priest, who will be 100 in August, watched the mural come alive as her neighbor painted that afternoon.

Asked how she and Davidson got to be such close friends, Priest smiled and said, “I guess I was just lucky.”

She Knows What I Did on My Summer Vacation
See here for pictures
As Told by D-L Nelson, Novelist and Journalist
on the exPat Writer Blog
Observations about living in Switzerland and France on a daily basis by an Swiss repat from America.
Sunday, July 15, 2007

Not the average holiday activity
Read first and then Click here for series of pictures
This was the second time M&B came to Argelès from the States. I’ve known him for decades and it is approaching a decade when she entered his life and I met her at Chinese restaurant in Cambridge, MA.

He reminds me of my parents' habit of talking to strangers. The fact his French is minimal is only a blip for him.

On the unseasonably cold and windy Sunday night the three of us were the only diners at La P’etite Pause, a restaurant specializing in the cuisine of Haute Savoie: tarteflettes, fondues, etc. Nadine, the owner-chef, was training a new waitress and we began talking in French, English, Franglais. She described how she had done much of the reconstruction work herself and how she planned eventually to add a mural of her beloved Mont Blanc. Before B’s wife and I knew it he had volunteered to do create the mural of her dreams. I was pressed into service as translator to make sure she got what she wanted. A day was set aside for the work (eat your heart out Michelangelo.)

An adventure to find a new art supply store was followed with prayers of thanks offered for the good road signage that is a French specialty.

B painted for 12 hours, plied with coffee and food to keep up his strength.

Nadine didn’t quite believe it. It was unheard of that an American artist would appear at her table then add her dream to a wall and not accept money. She insisted we have an inauguration, an unveiling. Within 48 hours a fête was organized attended by locals, vendors, tourists and friends. Best dress was rolled out as were delicacies from the region and party was on.

As the last person Nadine whispered to me that this was a gift from heaven, but not only that when late at night she walked by the mural illuminated only by the moon through the window, it looked just like the real Mont Blanc did in the moon light from her childhood bedroom window.

And although we visited local sites, ate at good restaurants, talked with people together, and although they beached and biked, painting a mural is definitely not the average vacation pass time, but maybe the world would be just a bit better if it were.
See here for more pictures
Posted by DL NELSON at 2:54 AM

Enduring Elements and Partner's Create and Donate a Park for the People
People's Park Nears Phase 1 Completion

A Collaborative Creation on Private Land Donated for Public Use:

A Place for people to meet, relax, get wired for free and enjoy the Maynard gardens and skylines.
In 2007 I was offered an opportunity by Eloyse Healy a long time friend and vendor to improve use a portion of her commercial land in exchange for Enduring Elements’ Landscape Design/Build services. She had envisioned a permanent sign nearby a garden bed. She recently acquired a beautiful building and moved her business CAC Digital there. It is located at 42 Summer Street Maynard MA on a busy corner lot, steps from Maynard’s thriving downtown.

I appreciated the offer and set about designing a little more than a garden bed.

Remembering a small sunken circular bench where I spent a string of pleasant mornings while on a mural painting trip in the French village of Argeles-Sur-Mer I envisioned a large curved stone bench on a circular patio, built into a slope, surrounded by flowers and shrubs and dappled sun through shade trees. In Argeles this was the only spot outdoors I was able to find a wireless signal.

I approached Eloyse with this expanded concept that included views of the Maynard Community Garden, the iconic Clocktower at the mill and some church steeples.

In April of 2008 I drew the concept sketch, Eloyse loved it and offered to lease me the land. I wanted to create a space where the public could meet, relax, work on laptops (we are installing free wireless).










I would like to thank the following partners who dedicated time and resources to make this possible.

• CAC Digital: Allowed us to create this permanent, enduring creation.
• Enduring Elements Partners:
• EP Landscape, the build division of Enduring Elements Landscape Design/Build created a sensational 22’ curved bench with back from New England Fieldstone and a bluestone patio, bordered with red City Hall Pavers brick.
• Bay Leaf Studios, Maynard MA, Landscape Architect Lisa Bailey developed a planting plan which also included pruning of existing trees and some other stellar modifications and enhancements to my original plan.
• Thyme in the Garden, Maynard MA: Debby McNulty purchased and led her crew in the selection and planting of the beautiful garden bordering the bench and patio
• Laurel Hill Landscape, Grafton MA: Rob Nixon, veteran landscape professional and my long-time colleague, early supporter and mentor. He generously donated the rectangular bluestone. He also donated materials to a brain injury unit outdoor garden we created.
• ACH Construction, Maynard MA: Antonio Hippolito brought his excellent design sense, expertise and hands-on skill to the bench seats. We created three seven-foot curved templates and wood and pvc board forms to accept iron reinforced concrete.

The Benches were concrete cast on site in custom forms containing reinforcing steel mesh. After troweling and before curing we had various people associated with the project and passers by imprint with boots and hands.I put leaves from the King Crimson Norway Maple that provides shade in the concrete. In addition, other vegetation collected from the site was pressed into service. After it dried I removed the leaves and we mortared the benches in place. I beveled the edges for a nice sitting surface.

The Future

The highly anticipated Bike Trail is expected to run directly past the People’s Park.

The Free Wireless will be installed Spring 2009

Will stain the benches in the Spring with colors reflecting the various color transitions of the Norway Maple.

A water feature with sheet water cascading down surface of granite slab mounted on the granite block chimney.

Table(s) for people to use laptops and eat at. Designs in process: twisted bittersweet with bluestone tops?

A sign permit application was denied by the Maynard Building Department

An opening celebration.. stay tuned.

• 
  

Short Video of Bruce Davidson Painting Mural at Concord Health Care Center

My friend Mike Ault was kind to take this video of me painting a bit of the mural at Concord Health Care Center