Beyond Great: The Artist, Jo Tate
Jo Tate was an artist.
I don’t have incontrovertible evidence of this, but I am pretty sure that her sketchbooks, if not always in hand, were at least within reach at any given moment, if for no other reason than the breadth of her subjects. She passed away a few months ago and to honor her memory and work, her watercolors are currently on display and for sale at AVA Gallery, every one of them easily recognizable as hers.
The collection, Jo Tate: A Bright Light, at the Bank Street Gallery captures scenes from everywhere: Truchas, NM; Cozumel Beach; Trier, Germany; the Fairfield Horse Show in Westport CT ; “the Derby,” and a particularly charming watercolor of Obidas, Portugal that someone should scoop up immediately to brighten up a wall at home.
Next are her representations of bodies and nudes— resting, reclining, a gloved boxer sinking into a corner in exhaustion or a moment’s repose between rounds. A few paintings of beloved dogs are balanced by Man With Cat.
I imagine many artists keep busy, but Jo wasted not one minute. We met for coffee outside at King Arthur during the depths of the pandemic, a meeting that turned into hours—her stories were amazing, including one about her visit to a WWII-era bombed-out Dresden—ending our conversation only when it turned too cold to continue. I asked her what she was doing recently to keep herself occupied; she reached into her bag and pulled out not one, but three fat and filled sketchbooks.
Beyond her art, Jo Tate was also a remarkable person. No doubt Jo’s family and close friends have hundreds of stories to tell about her and her amazingly full life. My own story is that every time I bumped into Jo, often mid-morning at the Co-op or at the frame shop, she had already completed a dizzying number of tasks on her daily to-do list. She once reported about making a favorite food for her husband, sorting out details of an upcoming exhibition of her work, troubleshooting a glitch in transport for a small group of artists she was scheduled to shepherd on an upcoming painting adventure in Europe, shopping for the week’s groceries, scurrying a little to make it to her Pilates class on time. And this was all before 10 a.m.
I adored her work (I own two pieces), envied her energy, and loved to laugh with her and bask in her smile. Such is the power of her art that one of her portraits, hanging on my office wall, chased away all doubts that had nagged at me about taking a brief, solo sabbatical to Paris fourteen years ago. It has continued to inspire and to get me through rough patches. I am grateful I had the opportunity to tell her that.
Rest in peace, Jo. You and your work will continue to shine.
(Photo, top, by Susan B. Apel)
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And in case you are wondering . . . Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word..