When we lived in the city we were attuned to a different set of spring indicators, like finally opening windows to the sounds of singing birds, car alarms and swelling ranks of eager joggers. Rotating winter coats and boots to the back of the closet, while pulling transitional clothing from overstuffed bins that may have spent the winter at the bottom of the closet or in storage rooms, becoming a necessary routine. Besides a happier attitude, simply adjusting to lighter clothing and more outdoor activity was probably the most we had to do with spring in the air. Our long held promises of healthy lifestyles would be initiated, like taking the bike off the wall, and lacing up sneakers for the walk, run or handball match and health club memberships being signed, all starting out with gusto but often petering out by the hot temperatures of summer, becoming a ritual themselves.

As we cycle through another season’s change, the experience of times before, makes it more pleasant, knowing what to expect, we employ lessons from the last time around. For those of us who are older the cycles of life have been a helpful friend that whispers to us, “Have no fear, you know how this works out.” In my work, it’s time to put the stress of the semester and producing paintings for the MV show behind me and joyfully complete all the work that started during the winter. Work is a gift and I am happy for each new season that allows me a chance to improve upon all that has been given to me.

When the wild turkeys complete their mating dance, I know is my time to clear out the garden beds, place outdoor furniture, attend Marist and Parsons fashion shows, finish oil paintings and finally plant some annuals as the thaw of winter necessitates.

The road to fulfillment of this dream is like a well-wrought play itself, with Stephen Byrd and Alia Jones-Harvey at the helm, building on their success with “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”. These undaunted theatrical impresarios have pulled on a knowledge of their audience that have alluded other producers through the vast network of access they have created among new theater-goers. As a member in attendance last night, I felt like a particularly welcomed guests, which has been my experience in each viewing of their productions. The after party at the Copacabana on West 47th Street added to the story of friends and ordinary people coalescing around the success of their latest venture. The many storied past of the “Great White Way” which has many new shades of color was highlighted when the investors of this new production were asked to stand at the end of the play, many of which were personal friends.

In the packed theater, seated nearby was people like Boris Kodjoe, Al Roker and Deborah Roberts, Tamara Tunie, Debbie Allen, Melissa Harris-Perry, Marcus Samuelson, Donna Williams, Nadia Fattah, Terrie Williams, Marie Brown, Donald Bogle, Bethann Hardison, Debra Lee, Bob Johnson, Linda Davila and her husband Aldo, Tom and Pat Brandsford, Renee Hunter, Julio and Michelle Peterson, some of whom Joe Steele and I are happy to call friends. At the equally packed after party, we spoke with many of them and have photographed a few below.

Our last moment, upon leaving the club was running into Blair Underwood, who graciously received our appreciations and shook our hands as we stepped out into the rainy night.

Click here for more pictures from opening night for Streetcar Named Desire

“Funerals are pretty compared to death”…these words struck me as I sat in the darkened theater last night, alongside our godson Ricon Wrenn, at the previews of “A Streetcar Named Desire”. These words are spoken by the Blanche DuBois character, as the dread of a life she was forced to escape from reverberated through her own downward spiral…portrayed convincingly by Nicole Ari Parker, the striking actor in the new Stephen Byrd Broadway production…I was pulled into her journey.

These spoken words resonated for me because of the recent passing of, both, my sister-in-law, Yvette Gatson Tunstull and the celebrated artist Elizabeth Catlett, on the same day, and the sudden awareness of the noise of dying that seems to go unnoticed by those not there. At the funeral, “they are wrapped up and put in a box, and everything is covered in flowers,” Blanche says in the play, and the vocalized pain and struggle of holding on, finally passes quietly into the night.

Yvette had fought cancer for over ten years, having to change her life in big and small ways, always with dignity and an eye to the future. Her focus and concern were not for herself but for her son Ryon, her husband Ron and her family. The cries at night could not be constrained but, by day a smile of fortitude masked her unrelenting struggle. With her ebbing energy she focused on Ryon, giving him a lifetime of a mother’s love, affection and guidance.

With Elizabeth Catlett and the tributes about her immense body of inspiring artwork that seem to capture the mettle of our people – enduring ongoing challenges of living through impoverished conditions and institutional discrimination – the two women seemed to have a similar resilience to me. Catlett’s drawn, etched and sculpted heroes of the past reflect the same determination existing today in so many of us. It may not be the scorch of the sun on one’s back or the bite of snow on one’s shoeless feet, as told from the past, but the fortitude of prior generations still coursing through our veins that allow us to repel the pain of suffering with greater strength.

Blanche DuBois loses her battle to hold onto a romanticized reality of her life by the end of the play…as she exits “stage left” on the arm of a stranger who muffles her own pleadings. She, like most, can learn from Elizabeth and Yvette the power of quiet resilience when the time comes.

The surprisingly warm winter sun that lit the mailbox in front of the corner Cape Cod house in Southampton, where Joe and I stood retrieving the mail and enjoying the respite from that winters’ chill, also lit the black SUV that had suddenly came to a stop in the middle of our intersection. The lone male driver, peered at us, in what appeared to be a moment of vigilante surveillance. The unusually long stare that emanated from behind the visor brought up the uncomfortable feelings that rises from deeply ingrained suspicions, that weigh the balance of many black and white initial interactions.  Joe and I could tell his reaction implied “You don’t belong here and what are you doing  with that mailbox?”  His deadening stare, in his mind, should have been enough to intimidate us and run us away, from our home of the past three years. The driver slowly drove off, after a moment, leering at us as we leered back in disgust and disbelief. Even fifteen years ago when this happened, it seemed like it was too late in our country’s history to still have these types of encounters…but as we see with Trayvon Martin, time simply stands still when deeply rooted racism boils to the surface.

The wanton killing, of what seemed to be a fine young boy, pulls at our hearts for the pure senselessness of it all. Perhaps it’s the ongoing coverage of the dehumanization of this child in the eyes of his assailant and local law enforcement, that continually has me ruminating sadly about it.  While driving, walking, working, painting the thought of it finds me slipping into a momentary anxiety about the change the never seem to come in the hearts of men. When I was a twelve-year old student, my black history teacher, while discussing slavery, had said to the class, that when he was our age, he had hoped that when he had grown up, racism would be a thing of the past. His wish clearly remains unfulfilled.

And yet the many advances in the relationships between peoples of all colors, nationalities and gender, only serve to show that the old ways had lost their hold on the psyches of so many, and the hopes that were merely dreams are becoming realities in the main. The social reconstruction that highlighted the marches and movements of the 60′s have taken hold as the type of America we have decided we want and the continuous crop of errant offenders, resistant to this new reality are like wolves that howls in the night for their very existence, fearful of their own disappearance in the turn of the times. And the closer they come to extinction the louder they will howl.

The potential of creative growth is expressed in each opening bud and I am inspired to bring forth my own “blossoms of creative energy” with new sketches and paintings. After a long gray winter of shortened days and long nights my optimism for the new day has awakened again, knowing what is about to unfurl in the form of flower petals and opportunity.

The hope of a new day for those of us that have struggled through the dark, remains eternal and any signs of things getting better is reserved as strong impetus in our hearts to march forward in that pursuit. That hope takes stage in our political process for many and not just in our gardens, and we will need to tend to our individual responsibilities there more than ever for a better day tomorrow.

Please enjoy this video that Carol Rose shared with me today.

The Life of flowers from VOROBYOFF PRODUCTION on Vimeo.

Usually the moment comes upon me without warning or prescience in the dream. And usually, it follows one of the recurring motifs of me struggling to collate documents for something, travel from one place to another – whether around the corner, cross town or to another country – or trying to get to one of the ever mutating multiple residences I seem to have but have misplaced or lost directions for in these dreams. The rig-a-ma-roll in these ventures tend to be benign until it leads to a disagreement, usually with someone emotionally close, and escalates into a yelling or fighting match, which will awaken me hollering or shouting at the person and in an instance, hitting my partner, even if it wasn’t about him. Other times the dream is interrupted by an unanticipated turn of events, like a animal suddenly lashing out and chasing and biting at me or walking through a door and abruptly encountering menacing figures lurching at me with claws or weapons or slipping from an unstable surface off into an abyss looming below.

Weaving toward awakening, still in the moment, crying out in the dark, with hands or arms flailing and fear or anger filling my body, I grasp for safety. My accelerated heart beat adding to the throbbing of nerve endings, as my pulse races and my breathing shortens. At times, I would unfortunately awaken my partner with a scream or punch, inadvertently pulling him into my nightmare, from his own restful sleep. Scratching for the reality that it was only a dream, seems to elude me in the ensuing moments because it felt so real. The space between our dreams and real life does not exist in these moments and reveals to me that we essentially tread between two worlds – the conscious and unconscious.

The reason for these turns in dreams is unclear and can be assumed to rest in the unsettled issues of our wakened hours, however, the closeness of them to our reality is not below the surface but actually there as a racing heart and the startled face of an awakened lover might reveal.

This consciousness is hard to maintain in a land where things operate in a fluid motion, attendant to what happens next rather than what is prescribed. This moment is what matters, is a concept I willfully use in my daily life, but for it to truly work it has to be unconscious. Here in Salvador the people seem to know that there is no rush to get to the next moment when the present one is before you. The chance encounter that could lead to a long talk, walk or lunch is a common happenstance. Having a relationship with someone or something, like the sun, surf and sand, is enough to fill one’s day. My goal is to carry this way of being into the colder climes of the northeast, and not be rushed by chill or prescription, because the next moment can wait.

Please check out the new website tunstullstudio.com

As I leafed through local papers, filled with smiling faces offering me holiday discounts that would disappear if I didn’t act quickly, I wondered if anyone of them cared if I had the spirit of giving or just the capacity to spend. The requests for donations to the needy, that fell from my mailboxes, both physically and electronically, trying to reach that left over space in my heart and on my credit card, was met with a cool indifference, knowing my name was one of thousands generated from an unsolicited mailing list. Electronic gadgets that seemed to sprout new generations every holiday, capture my interests in gizmos, for a moment, but do not elicit a spirit of Christmas in me, anymore than a snow shovel would.

As I think back, the things that had triggered the spirit for me were sharing time and good will with family and friends, with little more than happiness and gratitude as a gift. The debt laden guilt that often follows last minute gift giving is different from the freely given love and appreciation that a drop by visit on a snowy day could provide. Breaking bread together or sharing a cup of tea, does more to spread joy to the world than an unappreciated gift, whether it was a good buy or not.

As we pull ourselves out of a long struggle for economic balance, we can look at more ways to give the spirit of Christmas to our families and communities. Items that not only benefit a retailer’s bottom line but employ local manufacturers and those they touch, rather than those a continent away. As I purchase local items, here in Columbia County, like scarves from Jeffrey Aronoff, gloves from DeMarchin and handmade knits from Spruce Ridge Farm, the feeling of impacting not only those I give the items to but who made them, makes it full circle for me. The gift of supporting those around me, seem to provide a spirit of giving that extends beyond myself, touching my friends and and community altogether.

The long slog to this outcome started with heavy rains battering us as we left the Poughkeepsie train station from Manhattan. Piling into my car quickly we braved the buffeting of rain, with the windshield wipers at full speed, for almost an hour, as we made our way north to Columbia County. The rain gave way to sleet and we slowed the speed of the car, as the road surface became slippery, and the windows thickened with a congealing slush. I had heard earlier that snow was on its way but had hoped we would skirt the brunt of it, as we sometimes did.

The heavy sleet turned out to be the more desired climactic condition as it soon turned into flurries and then a full blown snowstorm. We tried to make light of it, commenting on the interesting pattern that the flakes formed as they rushed to block our view of anything else on the road. The desolate roadway had a few tire tracks that we tried to follow in an attempt to remain on the road and avoid skidding on the icy surface. The white-out conditions and the reduced speed left me disoriented and unaware of where I was on the oft traveled road. Suddenly a phone call from Joe, who had landed at the Albany Airport and was making his way home from the north, was met with concern and trepidation as he told of over shooting his exit and being mired on a shoulder embankment, in the pounding snow, twenty miles away in the opposite direction. My first thought was to go get him once I dropped off our guests. With our godson, Ricon Wrenn’s cellphone running out of batteries, my own cell lost a week earlier, and Angelique Anderson’s phone indicating a loss of power and of signal, intermittently, we vowed to stay in touch with Joe.

The mounting snow on the road had us traveling at 20 mph, with an ever-present undercurrent of subtle and terrifying skids along the way. The mounting fear that we would eventually slide into an embankment and be stuck there all night led me to get off the Taconic Parkway an exit early. Hoping that the roads would have been cleared more was met with disappointment as the thick snow with tire tracks proved harder to negotiate. Steering first in one direction and then another, like a sailboat tacking along a roadway we inched forward, gaining momentum on the downhill, and spinning tires on the slightest incline. We had put off changing to winter tires because of a busy schedule and a deluding warm fall season. The delayed mistake was proving to be very costly emotionally for myself and my intrepid guests.

Joe calls us on the phone, with the ebbing battery, and tells us a truck had arrived to help another person, stuck where he was, and possible he might get the truck to help him. My concern for his driving the twenty miles home on the Parkway was weighing on me, knowing he hadn’t changed his tires either. If we were having trouble, surely he was too.

At least now passing darkened houses, which were going to be possible safe havens, we continued on, haltingly, toward a local gas station. Unfortunately, we overshot the entrance, sliding to a stop at the traffic intersection. Forging onward, fearing the effort of turning around, we passed a police car aiding a trapped car on our right. Perhaps it was the sight of someone else getting rescued, we suddenly careened off the road into someone’s yard about fifty yards further ahead. Unable to go forward into a hedge or to backup, we knew we had had it. Three hours after starting this one hour journey, we had been forced to end it, on a cold roadway in front of a blackened house. Then suddenly a large white man runs towards us from his car, to ask if we were alright. I thought he had gotten stuck too but he had really just stopped to aid us. Using his formidable strength he proceeded to push our car out of the embankment, with all of us in it! With a little maneuvering we were back on the road, tacking from one side to the other, with Gods hands moving us out of the way of the occasional oncoming vehicle. Our saving angel followed us to the gas station nearest our house, which was about five miles away before heading off to save others.

Now parked next to a filling stand, we weighed our options. Do we try to follow a road plow, that may or may not go all the way to our house, and risk getting stuck again on the outskirts of town at one thirty in the morning, or just wait there until the sun rose and the roads cleared for driving. Joe calls and weighs in that we needed to contact local friends, AAA, or a taxi service. Except for our friend Jelanie Bandele, the other calls went unanswered, and she was in Brooklyn. The chill in the car was beginning to wash over us as we gave into bedding down for the night there, when we saw a snow covered car turn the corner that we thought might be a taxi. Beeping my horn frantically, the car turned into the gas station and turned out to be a patrol car with a policeman named Sargent Guy. After explaining we were five miles from home but was afraid to try and get there he offered to drive us there himself. Angel Number Two, Sargent Guy of Livingston, packed us into his patrol car and drove us to our destination. He was patrolling the many communities that night for situations and people in distress like us. He used his spot light to light our path as we made it up the quarter mile long driveway to the house.

The relief of being back home at last allowed me to appreciate the glow of the white snow, emanating light across the grounds, as we trudged the length of the distance to the awaiting warm house. Upon walking in the door, we receive a call from Joe saying he found a motel to weather the rest of the night and we all slept peacefully that night, at last.

On a lit dais, at one end of the room, the encouraging words of connubial bliss were offered in a touching and funny way by Susan Taylor and her husband Khephra Burns, who sighted the coincidences of life that conspire to cause perfect unions to form and admonished the crowd that “when you have to argue, do it naked.” The exchanging of vows that followed could not be more heartfelt in their deliveries or more gender neutral in script and were finally punctuated, at the other end of the room, by the rousing medley of two love songs by the lovely Vivian Reed. With everyone now on the edge of tears, the passionate embrace and kiss of the newly minted couple was met with a splendid light show and glittering shower of gold butterflies from the ceiling.

The blue ascending curtains parted on cue, to the choral voices of more than fifty singers from the WPAS amassed aloft in a second floor balcony, heralding the next venue where the guests were set to mingle and greet one another under the lavishly decorated space. A stunning centerpiece of a floating floral tree with dangling birdcages filled the overhead space. Greeting old and new friends, Joe Steele and I first encountered Audrey Smaltz and Gail Marquis, whose own wedding two weeks prior is highlighted in today’s New York Times Style Section. As Joe spoke with Eric Michael Dyson and Julianne Malvaeux and Desiree Rogers, I circled the room greeting dear friends Norma Jean Darden, Nadia Fattah, Lola C. West, Sheila Hardy, David Martin, Peg Alston, Allen Harvey, Alison Arnold-Simmons, Antoinette Stewart, Deborah Chatman, in a vintage necklace worn by Lena Horne, and many more. Well known actor, Tamara Tunie was stunning in an aqua gown, as she spoke of her upcoming feature film with Denzel Washington.

After a time the curtains parted again and the crowd migrated to the dining room with tables adorned in flowered birdcages, overhead floating trees and colorful fantasy birds painted on what appeared to be Limoges dinner plates. A stage drenched in blue light filled one end of the room and singers performed as the guests took their seats. The delicious fare was served up as Reggie and Corey were toasted over and over by friends and loved ones. Pamela Joyner, a self-professed twin of Reggie, gave a toast to the three p’s that Corey possessed and made him a wonderful partner, positivity, protection and patience. She wore a white gown to go with the white shoes that Reggie had given her for her wedding.

Upon the last toast the blissful couple cut the two cakes, one fashioned as a stack of Louis Vuitton luggage and the other of a peacock ascending a white layered cake, created by my friend Margo Turnquest Lewis’ company, Cake Bliss. At this point, the newly married couple became the masters of ceremony and introduced Ron Brown’s Evidence Dance Troupe, which performed to Stevie Wonder’s “All I do, is just think about you”.

With the crowd fully roused by the performance, Reggie tells us that Corey has something to say. With that Corey steps forth and announces, “DIANA ROSS is here!” Probably like many others I expected an impersonator to step out on stage, but the inimitable voice of Miss Ross reverberated through the room and the elegant crowd instantly rushed forward to the stage with cameras and cell phones capturing her image in every digital way possible. She sang three songs with Reggie and Corey on stage at one point, and then disappeared as quickly as she arrived. Floating on surprise and elation the crowd settled into the most festive mood of the evening and tried to reconcile in their minds and hearts what had just happened. Dessert was served and with our appetites quenched beyond belief, and the dance floor warming up to a hot night, we left the wedding night to remember.

Diana Ross at wedding
Corey and Reginald Wedding Photo Website