HE AND HIS ART MADE THE WORLD, ESPECIALLY MY WORLD, BETTER
Richard Mayhew’s “Spiritual Transitions”, book cover courtesy of the artist and ACA Galleries, NYC (Author photo)
Richard Mayhew cast a benevolent smile my way when my husband introduced me, then his new bride, at a San Francisco gallery show in the early 1990s. Before the evening ended Mayhew had accepted a dinner invitation for the next night, and within another 24 hours I became a confirmed fan.
Reading of his death, at 100, in the New York Times, saddens me — but brings back a flood of shiny memories.
Mayhew loved to talk jazz, or art, or about his work with Romare Bearden and fellow Black artists from many disciplines in the tumultuous 1960s. Or about his heritage, which included Black and Native American ancestry. I loved hearing it all, but I loved his gorgeous paintings the most.
The Times (which twice erroneously refers to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco as the “San Francisco Museum of Art,” but we try to be forgiving) quotes Mayhew in an earlier interview as saying his landscapes “internalize my emotional interpretations of desire, hope, fear and love. So instead of a landscape, it’s a mindscape.” They are stunningly lovely, colorful, mystical works you can find in many great museums.
All of which made this personal encounter rather magical in itself:
My book Dying Unafraid, the first I’d ever published that was straight from my heart, was in its final pre-publication stages when an invitation arrived at our house for a 1998 Mayhew show at ACA Galleries in New York. A reproduction of one of the paintings in the show, “Spiritual Transitions,” was featured on the invitation cover.
“That’s it!” said my husband. “That’s the cover for your book.”
(Author photo)
Well, good luck with that, I remember thinking. Mayhew had been to dinner one time a half-dozen years earlier, but that hardly qualified us as great friends. We had not crossed paths or corresponded since then, and weren’t going to make it to New York for the show. The painting — minor detail — was listed for sale at $40,000.
My husband, not one to let minor details interrupt a good idea, picked up the phone and called Mayhew at his studio.
“Oh, sure,” he said. “I’ll have the gallery send a slide to the designer today.” Whereupon, Debra Turner Design created one of what I consider the two great book covers of all time (the other being remarkable artist Ward Schumaker’s cover design for my Perilous Times.)
A few years later, when I was invited to participate in the 2001 Hospice Mask Project, I decided to collage my mask with torn bits of the beautiful Dying Unafraid book jacket. But would this be disrespectful? A misuse of something which, in my humble opinion, bordered on the sacred?
Not brave enough to pick up the phone, I sent Mayhew a note, mentioning my plan. On receipt, he picked up the phone himself and called my husband — the traditional intermediary, more broadly known among our friends as The Great Encourager.
“Tell Fran that’s an excellent idea,” he said. “It’s all about inspiration.”
Richard Mayhew was an inspiration for the ages. May he rest in gratitude and well-earned peace.
(The mask – Author photo)
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