Late to the wake

Laruel Burch, a woman for whom a single adjective just isn't enough, has died. She died in September, but I only heard about it today, so it's today that my heart aches for the end of the vision of an artist and designer whose style inspired me so much. Her Obit told me things about her struggles in life that make her accomplishments even more inspirational. In her own words:

"I live within the vivid colors of my imagination, soaring with rainbow-feathered birds, racing the desert winds on horseback, wrapped in ancient tribal jewels, dancing with mythical tigers in steamy jungles."

All that in was her head, while dealing daily with a very frail body and constant pain; what she chose to make for the world was exuberant beauty and visions of joy, with a particular love for cats. My one trip to England was chronicled in a journal with this Laurel Burch cat head cover. It was with me through days of sketching at the Victoria and Albert, through grad school interviews and observations of the world I craved to enter.

I so clearly remember the first place I heard of Laurel Burch. In the early 1970s there was a book of folk artists in the San Francisco Bay area called "Native Funk & Flash." This book was a key to creativity for many artists of my generation, and seems to have been in the hands of many bead artists who sprung up in the 80s, m'self included. In it was a picture of Laurel, sitting on a bed wearing a "Lifetime dress" of her own (at that time) exotic design. My first contact with her mass produced jewelry was in Ye Olde Mystic Shoppes, a very twee shopping district down the road from the Mystic Seaport Museum. I was on a forced march speed day trip by bus & I was cranky because as much time was allotted to the "Ye Olde Shoppes" as was the Seaport, where I thought we were spending the day. Two things of delight came out of that forced shopping trip - a view of rainbow-like sundogs and the purchase of a pair of pewter Laurel Burch sitting cat earrings. I wore out the first pair, lucked into finding a matching second pair made out of sturdier metal, and wear them still. My world comes in richer colors because Laurel Burch lived.

I write this with tea fragrantly steaming by my side, my own mix of black tea with peppermint & spearmint, in a mug decorated with Laurel Burch dancers.