Remembering Kevin

My friend, Kevin Woodward, died of cancer on June 23, 2024. Please click on his name to access the obituary to get more information about him if you wish.

I want to talk about Kevin as friend, mentor, and the need for us all to have mentors - even when they tell us things we aren’t ready to hear. I met Kevin shortly after I began painting. He’d been painting for years, been in shows, won awards for his art, etc; I was a rookie. From the very beginning, he was trying to get me out of my comfort zone. We debated materials, paint, style, and influences among many other subjects. He constantly pushed me to do more - to be more; some of those times elicited cursing responses that would make George Carlin proud. Even during those times, though, I knew he only had my artistic (and sometimes personal) interests in mind. He cheered every one of my sales; he was anywhere I had a painting on display. Every new art book or supply purchase was shared with him. When my Mom died nearly 5 years ago, I couldn’t paint for 6 weeks. I was at his house, he got out a large canvas and some black paint, and he told me just to cover the canvas surface with black paint. By the next morning, between spans of painting, sleeping, and maybe a little drinking, I had a painting in tribute to my Mom.

The paining I painted as a tribute to my mom

Georgia O’Keeffe was his favorite artist, and there’s a big exhibit of her paintings at the Art Institute in Chicago from her time in New York City that we’d planned to attend the first weekend in August. I’m still planning to go. There will be tears but plenty of chuckles, too. If there IS a place where the people we love gather after they leave this world, I’d like to think he’s having great conversations with her with plenty of flirting!

Kevin was a daily part of my life for many years, and I will miss him and be sad he’s gone for a long time, but of course I will not stop painting. His daughter gave me some of the brushes & other materials he used, so I will use his stuff from time to time. I’m working on a painting right now that I used with his materials that I’ll share soon. We knew how important we were to each other; we didn’t leave much left unsaid, thankfully. Be sure to let the important people in our lives KNOW how important they are while you can.

A painting of Kevin's given to me

Another of Kevin's paintings given to me