How We Grieve Phillip Lee
My Facebook feed this week has been a pretty sorrowful affair. As difficult as it may be for those who knew him to believe, it has been four years since we lost Augusta musician Phillip Lee. A bold, charismatic and truly gifted talent, Lee had, in the years preceding his premature death, established himself as a real regional favorite. He was a sensitive songwriter with a rocker’s heart — the rare artist that was able to bridge raw honesty with true beauty. He is missed by his family, friends and fans.
Thinking about Lee this week I began to wonder if the grief expressed and the loss felt is different because he was a performer and songwriter. Not better, not worse – just different.
Hear me out.
When we lose someone who is a public creator – be they a musician like Lee or any other artist – we lose more than merely that person. We lose the potential for more. More songs. More performances. More tapping into the joy or pain or whatever emotion stokes their creative fire. We miss what they might have presented us in the future. Like I said, this doesn’t make the grief sharper, just different. It colors it in a slightly different way. Perhaps it is because our memories come with a soundtrack. Maybe it’s because when we lose a musician, we lose someone who chose to give freely of themselves. Maybe its because, when we close our eyes at night, we dream there was just one more encore, a simple song by the musician who, through their art, engaged with us the way only a musician can.
Whatever the case, Phillip Lee is missed and will be for many years to come.
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Against the Wall
You might have noted, over the past few months, that some old art is looking fairly fresh. Local artist Addison Niday has been researching, and then restoring, many of the old advertising murals that, over the past several decades, have been quietly fading like a forgotten ghost. Where once was a faded memory barely hanging onto its red brick perch, there are the bold colors and jaunty slogans of yesteryear. It’s an interesting project, but also one I’m unsure I agree with.
Let’s be clear, I’m always on the side of historic preservation. It’s restoration I sometimes take issue with. When Niday paints over these old murals, he is not preserving them. He is covering them with a new version of the old sign. My preference would be to seek out these old murals and, where possible, treat them so they don’t continue to deteriorate. I don’t want to see new plaster slapped on the pyramids, a power washer taken to Stonehenge or a coat of fresh paint applied to historic murals.
Unless…
Unless this becomes something that is more than merely a pick-and-choose affair. Over the past several years, new murals have cropped up around the city – particularly in the downtown district. They have become an attraction. If the old-made-new murals can be accomplished as a complete project, with all the walls that once touted soda or stores or sundries brought back to life, then there might be real value in this project. Then, in conjunction with the new murals, they become part of something larger than themselves. Murals become part of the community’s identity – the very specific public art that may define Augusta. That’s a big project however – perhaps bigger than Addison Niday is willing to take on himself. Here’s hoping we can either preserve history or leverage it for the future. Either works for me.
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Buried Treasure – The Bear Comes Home by Rafi Zabor
This may be the greatest novel ever written about the trials and triumphs of jazz musicians. It may also be the greatest novel ever written about talking bears.
The Bear – who is in fact a real bear- is a philosopher, reader, perpetual student and professional musician. Forever seeking the alchemy that will align him with the likes of his beloved Coltrane he struggles, perhaps because is a sax playing bear, to find his place in the world. Beautifully written, ‘The Bear Comes Home’ portrays the joys and pathos of both contemporary life and the bare (or bear) existence of a working musician with such honesty and precision that it is often easy to forget that the protagonist is ursine. But don’t. The Bear is much more than merely a stand-in for the prototypical artist. He’s a reminder that great art is often drawn from feelings of otherness and alienation. Who would feel that more acutely than a saw blowing bear?
Steven Uhles has worked as a professional journalist in the Augusta area for 22 years, and his Pop Rocks column ran in The Augusta Chronicle for more than 20. He lives in Evans with his wife, two children and a dog named after Hunter Thompson.
