Showing posts with label George Moffett. Show all posts
Showing posts with label George Moffett. Show all posts

Thursday, January 13, 2022

Farewell, Jim and George

 

I learned of two friends’ deaths last week, Jim Mafchir who I’ve known since 1964 and George Moffett who we met with his wife, Suzanne, when we were living on our boat soon after I retired.  Although I didn’t see Jim or George on a regular basis, we were part of each other’s lives.

 

I wrote about George a few years ago after he had fought back from his first stroke.  I admired his tenacity and what I wrote about him then could serve as a eulogy.  

 

We had boating in common and I’ll always remember him soldiering up the dock each morning, with his lunch pail, on his way to work which, at that time, was doing faux paintings for some well-known clients in Fairfield County such as William F. Buckley, Jr.  George was a renaissance person, developing creative skills such as music and painting, and my entry details those accomplishments.  Our hearts go out to his wife, Suzanne. 

 

Although I have mentioned Jim in this blog, I never dedicated an entry entirely to him, so he deserves more detail here.  Jim and I had a relationship dating back to 1964 when, out of college, I met him in New York City at the production department of Johnson Reprint Corporation.  I was assigned to Jim who had printing and production experience; and was a graduate of the NY School of Printing.  With my liberal arts background, I lacked any technical expertise and initially he was my mentor and we became friends.

 

In fact I lived with him for a while in the East Village after my divorce in the late 1960’s.  Those were different times; we were still in our 20s, Janis Joplin still rocking the Fillmore East, only blocks away.  Jim had a motorcycle and I was a frequent companion on the back and we planned an adventure to Fire Island for one weekend, leaving the bike at the ferry pier and taking our back packs, hoping to find a place to bed down in a house.  (Ann, who I hardly knew at the time, shared a vacation home on that section of the Island.  That was not her weekend to be there, and unfortunately even had she been there, there was no room in her house for two extra guys, so we bedded down in our sleeping bags on the beach with dune buggies occasionally coming precariously close.)  He moved to the southwest in the early 1970s.  I hadn’t seen him for at least 20 years until we visited Santa Fe in 2008 and spent time with him and Judy and had a close email relationship with him ever since.

 

Even though we were geographically separated, our careers had a degree of parallelism.  While I was running a publishing company in Westport, CT., he established Red Crane Press and then Western Edge Press, imprints that focused on Southwest history.  He was an adventurer; in spite of fighting cancer for the latter part of his life; he was a mountain climber and a skier, taking him to various parts of the world to pursue his passions.

 

Professionally, he contributed to two of my publishing projects as he was a talented graphics designer.  I didn’t have to ask him; he volunteered, designing my first piano CD cover, Sentimental Mood, and my first published book, New York to Boston.

 

More detail on Jim can be found on legacy.com.  Jim, old friend, rest in peace.  You are missed.

 





 

 

Monday, May 4, 2015

By George!



It always amazes me how many creative people labor away anonymously, eclipsed by what passes as “artistry” in our world of popular culture.  Their stories need to be told.

One such person is George Moffett.  We befriended George and his wife Suzanne quite by accident.  They were strolling down the dock where we kept our boat late on a summer afternoon in Connecticut.  At the time we had just purchased a 40’ Hatteras to live on during the summer months after having recently moved to Florida and we were working away, thoroughly cleaning the boat, I on the outside and Ann in the galley when a couple around our age stopped to chat. 

They had a smaller boat on another dock but said the life we were living was their dream, especially on a boat of this nature.  So I said, would you like to see it even though it’s not exactly ship shape right now, we just bought it.  We would love to, was their immediate reply.  I ducked my head into the boat to tell Ann we have some visitors.  What, she replied, the boat’s a mess!  They know, don’t worry!  So they came aboard for a tour and before we knew it we ended up sitting on the back deck for hours, Ann having whipped up some impromptu appetizers, drinking wine, watching the sunset and talking.  It felt like we had known them forever.  That was thirteen years ago and over this time, we forged a meaningful friendship.

While still living in Connecticut they planned a road trip to Florida primarily to see their daughter who lived in Ft. Lauderdale at the time as well as a first-time brief visit to our home.  On their way down they received terrible news, their beloved only child, Kelly, had suddenly died from an interaction of her medications and they were asked to pick up her remains.  

When Suzanne called us with that shocking news she told us they were then heading back to Connecticut.   Ann insisted that they at least come for lunch.  They agreed and finally decided to just stay the night as we would not hear of their driving any further that day.  But as they grieved and we lent emotional support to the best of our ability, we persuaded them to stay several more days, needing to recuperate from such an overwhelming trauma.  During that time we became even closer as we talked and shared our histories.  It was then that we learned some surprising things about George, who we discovered was a talented artist as well as a musician, picking up both creative endeavors later in his life.

Before this tragic event they had sold their home in Westport, bought a condo in Milford as well as the boat of their dreams, a 43’ Hatteras.  Only three days after holding a memorial service for Kelly, George had a life-threatening stroke and was hospitalized in St. Vincent's Hospital in Bridgeport and spent more than three weeks there undergoing daily therapy.  

The prognosis was poor – he may never walk again unaided and he might have difficulty expressing himself. He was seen by the traditional medical community and an acupuncturist and although they were very instrumental in his recovery, equal credit goes to George for his determination to regain his cognitive and physical abilities, even when the medical community had its doubts.  Each day he wrote in a journal and although initially it was all gibberish due to the stroke, slowly it began to make sense.  He forced his mind to work again and to this day he writes in a journal, like a runner would run miles to stay in shape.  Almost all of his physical abilities returned as well. It was at that time they decided to move to Savannah and to sell the boat. 

George worked as a house painter most of his life.  He had his own business.  That morphed into faux painting skills with his work in large demand by owners of some very beautiful Fairfield County estates.  His creative energy was expressed in that form as well.

As a younger man it also came out in music.  George and Suzanne had several musician friends such as the baritone sax player, Jon Lanni, who played with musical great Maynard Ferguson as well as a bass player, Walter Urban, and many others.   Walter was in the market for a new bass and Suzanne approached him to purchase his "older" bass for George who always wanted to learn how to play an instrument but was discouraged to do so since his two brothers before him failed at their own musical efforts.   Suzanne wrapped up this gift in some pretty white paper and a big red bow and placed it right in the middle of the living room as a big “surprise” for George……like an old friend who just happened along.  "Hurry home, George," it called out to him, as Suzanne fondly remembers.  So you could say that she was very instrumental in creating George, the musician, while having to listen to the screeching sounds as he practiced and eventually learned how to play.

George then began to study with a number of teachers including Clyde Lombardi, a well known American jazz bassist who had extensive classical training.  Before long – and this is while he worked as a house/faux painter, George became a keen student of jazz and started a second career playing gigs in Fairfield County, and New York City, including accompanying the piano great, John Mehegan as well as many other fine musicians in the area.  Can you imagine picking up this incredible skill in mid life and playing at a professional level?

But then on to his discovery of the inner artist. One day George came across several oil paintings that so inspired him that he decided to contact the artist, Frank Covino, who had an art academy in Fairfield, Ct.  George enrolled and a whole new expression of art came to life. You might say an artist was discovered.  Many of the paintings depicted here are from those early days, particularly the portraits.  He sometimes worked from photographs, but frequently just as he imagined the person. His portrait of Rembrandt was painted during one long day and strictly from memory.

After the stroke, his musical days were behind him, and he had given up on art as well while he worked at his recovery.  But two years later he said it was time.  His first post-stroke attempt was of a woodpecker, but he was discouraged by it and again put his painting aside for awhile.  Eventually he went back to it, deciding he would let the painting “do him” rather than his attempting to “do the painting” so it was at this time he began to do abstracts and to this day his art has sustained him. 

So when Ann visited Suzanne in Savannah recently – a “girl’s weekend” – I gave her a camera and asked her to take some photographs of his paintings.  Unfortunately a few were unavoidably photographed at an angle and others taken with a flash, both of which distort the painting.  But she did the best she could and with some editing I’ve managed to use as many as possible.  They tell the story of a man who found recovery through art, as well as showcasing a remarkably creative person.  Hopefully, this blog entry preserves some of his work.

Using most software, you can click onto the first photograph and create a slide show.  The paintings are labeled as part of the JPEG title.  George has successfully worked in portrait, animal, and abstract painting, all in oil and all truly remarkable.