I worked at Creative Capital many years ago as part of their professional development program. Chris was one of the teachers who led workshops. He was dishy and cool and yes, took every artist in that room - whether there to learn about taxes or marketing - seriously. When many of us struggled to call ourselves artists he was matter of fact about it. As a young woman trying to figure out how I was going to make it work in NYC, I was fortunate to have Chris as a model. It’s bittersweet to learn the news from Deer Isle - we love this corner of the world, too.
Thank you Michael, All those tender and beautiful-because-so-fleeting Maine summer days with Chris and Tim are flashing before me reading this. Chris, the Olympic level ex-gymnast happily bouncing on the trampoline with our children. His loving, faintly self-mocking laughter as we talked on and on about art, tinged with wry knowledge of his own boundless ambition to add to the gorgeous imperfections of the world. Irreplaceable.
As a gallerist who represents Chris’s work and as a friend who got to know him through his creative gifts, I am profoundly saddened by his sudden absence. His circles of community were large—I met him initially through my sister and then, a decade later, through Creative Capital when his work was showing at Mass MOCA in the summer of 2008, I believe. His last exhibit at the gallery—Remember the Forest, takes on an eerily expansive meaning as I consider his death. That exhibit, while about life cut short, was also about renewal and the way life lives on through the people we touch. The toppled tree roots were springing fresh life. It feels strangely prescient that Chris, like those trees that were uprooted by storms and proxies for friends he had lost to Covid, leaves us now, too soon. I will not look at the trees or the forest without remembering him and the impact he and his creative practice had on me and my way of thinking about art and possibility. I will miss him.
I’m stunned, Michael. This is a lot to process. Chris touched so many people and seemed to have endless energy. Thank you for the beautiful words. Thinking of so many people and memories right now, and you, Ayelet, and the family are in my thoughts. ❤️☸️
I am so sorry for your loss but am so grateful that you shared Chris with all of us. The enormous finality of death still shocks me, as when my fellow fifer, Tommy Williams fell through the ice of Queens Lake in January 1976 or when I heard one of my generation’s drummers had been lost in the fall of the South Tower on 9/11.
As you write about Chris, you keep him alive in all of us who read you. Keeping the dead alive as we are their living legacies is what my own life is.
We are comrades in grief—and what is grief anyway but love, the only thing truly eternal.
His passing is an incredible shock. Thank you for writing so beautifully about him and his incredible talent. He was so generous and a model for being both generous as an artist and also fantastically ambitious. I am just beginning to process this loss to our community.
Thank you for such a beautiful tribute. I was one of Chris's housemates in architecture school, but was fortunate to enjoy seeing his work - and him and Tim - often on both coasts. He spoke so warmly about you and your family.
Oh Chris. I am broken that you are gone. Thank you Michael for writing from your big heart about him. I was so lucky to call him, a dear dear human and friend. And Tim too. So much humor, depth, love for life and people.
Oh Chris. I am broken that you are gone. Thank you Michael for writing from your big heart about him. I was so lucky to call him, a dear dear human and friend. And Tim too.
Such a shock to learn that my old friend Chris has died. Just now I remembered rowing you across the bay with Jessica under a bullish moon. You carried on a conversation with Chris in another boat, their oars echoing across the dark.
My love to that little community tucked in among the pines and the rocks and cold ocean—you must all be reeling today.
Your tribute serves to remind me that there are so many wonderful people in the world, unknown to me except as they pass on. I get so absorbed by disappointment and disgust that I lose sight of sustaining brilliance. Thank you.
I worked at Creative Capital many years ago as part of their professional development program. Chris was one of the teachers who led workshops. He was dishy and cool and yes, took every artist in that room - whether there to learn about taxes or marketing - seriously. When many of us struggled to call ourselves artists he was matter of fact about it. As a young woman trying to figure out how I was going to make it work in NYC, I was fortunate to have Chris as a model. It’s bittersweet to learn the news from Deer Isle - we love this corner of the world, too.
Thanks for this.
Thank you Michael, All those tender and beautiful-because-so-fleeting Maine summer days with Chris and Tim are flashing before me reading this. Chris, the Olympic level ex-gymnast happily bouncing on the trampoline with our children. His loving, faintly self-mocking laughter as we talked on and on about art, tinged with wry knowledge of his own boundless ambition to add to the gorgeous imperfections of the world. Irreplaceable.
Oh, the gymnastics! How could I have forgotten?
As a gallerist who represents Chris’s work and as a friend who got to know him through his creative gifts, I am profoundly saddened by his sudden absence. His circles of community were large—I met him initially through my sister and then, a decade later, through Creative Capital when his work was showing at Mass MOCA in the summer of 2008, I believe. His last exhibit at the gallery—Remember the Forest, takes on an eerily expansive meaning as I consider his death. That exhibit, while about life cut short, was also about renewal and the way life lives on through the people we touch. The toppled tree roots were springing fresh life. It feels strangely prescient that Chris, like those trees that were uprooted by storms and proxies for friends he had lost to Covid, leaves us now, too soon. I will not look at the trees or the forest without remembering him and the impact he and his creative practice had on me and my way of thinking about art and possibility. I will miss him.
Thanks for this, Catharine.
I’m stunned, Michael. This is a lot to process. Chris touched so many people and seemed to have endless energy. Thank you for the beautiful words. Thinking of so many people and memories right now, and you, Ayelet, and the family are in my thoughts. ❤️☸️
I am so sorry for your loss but am so grateful that you shared Chris with all of us. The enormous finality of death still shocks me, as when my fellow fifer, Tommy Williams fell through the ice of Queens Lake in January 1976 or when I heard one of my generation’s drummers had been lost in the fall of the South Tower on 9/11.
As you write about Chris, you keep him alive in all of us who read you. Keeping the dead alive as we are their living legacies is what my own life is.
We are comrades in grief—and what is grief anyway but love, the only thing truly eternal.
So very very sorry to hear about this. I admired his work greatly and remember every show of his that I saw.
So very very sorry to hear about this. I admired his work greatly and remember every show of his that I saw.
His passing is an incredible shock. Thank you for writing so beautifully about him and his incredible talent. He was so generous and a model for being both generous as an artist and also fantastically ambitious. I am just beginning to process this loss to our community.
Thank you very much Michael- for sharing Chris and being an insightful and loving filter.
who else would have gilded the steps of the Williamsburg Bridge when they weren't flying around their studio?
Thank you for such a beautiful tribute. I was one of Chris's housemates in architecture school, but was fortunate to enjoy seeing his work - and him and Tim - often on both coasts. He spoke so warmly about you and your family.
Oh Chris. I am broken that you are gone. Thank you Michael for writing from your big heart about him. I was so lucky to call him, a dear dear human and friend. And Tim too. So much humor, depth, love for life and people.
Oh Chris. I am broken that you are gone. Thank you Michael for writing from your big heart about him. I was so lucky to call him, a dear dear human and friend. And Tim too.
I used to see Chris at parties hosted by mutual friends in Brooklyn and always loved talking to him. It’s hard to believe he’s gone.
Such a shock to learn that my old friend Chris has died. Just now I remembered rowing you across the bay with Jessica under a bullish moon. You carried on a conversation with Chris in another boat, their oars echoing across the dark.
My love to that little community tucked in among the pines and the rocks and cold ocean—you must all be reeling today.
Your tribute serves to remind me that there are so many wonderful people in the world, unknown to me except as they pass on. I get so absorbed by disappointment and disgust that I lose sight of sustaining brilliance. Thank you.