For Dear Life: Art, Medicine, and Disability
Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in La Jolla, California, September 19, 2024 to February 2, 2025.
Last week, we flew to San Diego to see Frank’s paintings that are part of the exhibit, For Dear Life: Art, Medicine, and Disability. On Tuesday (September 17), we attended the member and donor preview and dinner. We walked through the entire exhibit and it is very large and impressive. And Frank’s paintings look fantastic! We got to meet Jill Dawsey, one of the organizers of the show and Karin Zonis-Sawrey, who helped hang the show. Jill was very pleased to have Frank’s paintings included and told us that his paintings will get a lot of exposure from this show. And at dinner (which was delicious), it was really fun chatting with the people sitting at our table, (one of whom was the artist Sheree Rose, who had a piece in the show) talking about Frank and answering the very frequent question, “Why Idaho?????”
We spent four days in La Jolla and our Airbnb was literally right next door to the museum … and the ocean, by which we spent a couple hours sitting, mesmerized each day.
On our last day there, we spent some time sitting in the gallery where Frank’s paintings were on display and we ended up talking for quite a while with one of the gallery attendants. We described to him how Frank painted and showed him some photos Linda carries in her purse. He noted what a “colorful full life” we have had and was really happy to know the story behind Frank’s paintings. He said that he will tell people what we told him about Frank when he sees people looking at Frank’s paintings for the next five months.
We got to be buddies with the security guard at Pavilions, the local grocery store, who looked forward to seeing us coming in each day holding hands. He wanted a group hug when we left.
Frank always said it is the “small” things that change the world!
How would Frank have felt about his work being shown in a major museum?
It was good to see a current picture of you folks. I especially was wanting to see Linda as she is now, after seeing her in so many of the videos when Frank was still alive.