“IN MEMORY OF A VITAL MAN OF COURAGE & CREATIVITY”
Gary Spradling born May 4. 1951 in Springfield Missouri, died November 6, 2006 in Williamsburg Brooklyn, New York
By Yuko Nii, November 12, 2006
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Gary was a pioneer artist of Williamsburg, long before the neighborhood became known as an artist’s enclave. It is because of him and a handful of others in the early 1980’s that Williamsburg began to be staked out as a place for creative spirits. This is the untold history of Williamsburg, which the Williamsburg Art & Historical Center, also known as the WAH Center, will indeed remember and pass on.
I will never forget my first meeting with Gary. I believe it was sometime in summer 2000 when he came to the WAH Center with his friend to show me his portfolio. The great portfolio was like a world encyclopedia, telling a visual story of one’s inner voyage. There were countless documentations of his psyche, the transitions of states of mind and body. I recommended that he become a member of our art club, the Williamsburg Salon. Because he was a prolific artist, his art nicely fit into quite different thematic shows, and so he had shown quite a few times at the WAH Center, bedsides the Salon shows. This was a time when Gary was able to walk up the stairs to our other floors. In the years since, I have watched his decline, and have read his numerous poems, and listened to his inner voice in the WAH Center’s “Poetry Series.”
After he had been informed that he has ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease, and had only three to five years to live, he was in a state of shock. Miraculously, poems began to appear in his dreams and he would wake at 4 in the morning to have Michelle write them down. In 2002 Gary put together a collection of poems he called ‘Dead Man Talking.” He says in one of the poems, “We must embrace the cycle of existence and find our own unique way, to make peace with our life, to make peace with our death. To enjoy each fleeting day.”
Gary did just that. Even after the disease had brought him to total immobility and loss of speech, such that he could only use minor flexing of a finger or knee, to speak through a computer, he still held on fiercely to enjoy the company of his loyal wife and friends, and, amazingly, to continue to create works of art using even his bare feet assisted by his caretakers and Michelle. Even after suffering several heart attacks in the last hours of life, Gary clung to his will to survive and overcome. I truly know of no person like Gary.
Always, during his trial, Michelle was his guardian angel. She never complained about the hard work, attending to his needs and desires. She made Gary’s life into one that he wanted to stay in as long as he could. Without Michelle, Gary’s earnest desire to live and create could not have been accomplished. We should all have such angels above, such as Gary’s blessed Michelle, to watch over each of us while in our time upon this earth!
In the first four years after his diagnosis, Gary created 48 works of art and had written 167 poems, which he hoped to publish in three or four volumes. Since that time, he has undoubtedly produced much more. Remarkably he made 12 “foot works” during the last two months before his death. All of his art and writings since his diagnosis have dealt with the eternal progressions of life and death. We should all be reminded by the realization of our mortality thrust starkly upon Gary in a way that we, perhaps, could not deal with as gracefully as he did. He knew and we should also know, that there is so little of that important commodity of time for all of us. Above all, we should be enlightened by Gary’s example, to be good human beings and do our utmost to contribute to the human enterprise and enjoy the blessings of the love and friendship of our fellow humans. We should contribute our talents generously, as Gary did, with all the strength that God has granted us in our time on earth. Gary, you deserve a good rest and a great reward. We Love you.