Addison Parks
(1953–2018)
WHEN
JOYCE CREIGER paired Addison and me
for
our inaugural show in 1998 at the Creiger-
Dane
Gallery on Newbury Street, little did we
know
that she had initiated our twenty-year-long
friendship.
Little did I know that my exhibition
partner
had already achieved renown in the ’80s
in
New York, not long after graduating from the
Rhode
Island School of Design as part of the
neo-Expressionists
with shows at the Joan Washburn
and
Andrew Crispo galleries. He achieved
parallel
success as an art critic at ARTS Magazine
and,
when he moved to Boston, at the Christian
Science
Monitor.
In
1998, Addison drew on his New York and
Boston
connections to mount a show of hybrid
abstraction
at Creiger-Dane entitled Severed Ear,
which,
in retrospect, could only be considered
postmodern
anticipating the Provisionalist
painting
that Raphael Rubinstein labeled as
such
in 2007. It bespoke his ability to befriend
a
diverse group of artists and also a highly intuitive
mind
that could sense connections unseen
to
most people.
For
more than a decade, Addison and his
wife,
Stacey Parks, ran the Bow Street Gallery
in
Cambridge. On occasion, he would host
luncheons
with gallery members and other gallerists
where
there were vibrant discussions on
art
that one gallery member described as Pinteresque.
These
are memories of Addison at his
best,
a brilliant conversationalist bringing people
together
to discuss the topics of art and life that
defined
his existence.
People
remember him. One evening, I was
conversing
with someone at the Milton Resnick
and
Pat Pasloff Foundation, telling him about
the
death of Larry Deyab, who had been Resnick’s
studio
assistant. Somehow the conversation
turned
to Addison’s death, and he said
Addison
had reviewed his first show in NYC.
Recently,
a Boston artist contacted me out of
the
blue to tell me what an impact Severed Ear
had
on his life and art. Addison was not a happy
camper
in Boston, and justifiably so, since a
certain
fussbudget mentality reigns in this town
that
was not sympathetic to charismatic types
like
him. He was an enthusiast in an art scene
defined
by doctors and lawyers.
What
is most memorable about Addison is
his
unbending resistance to those experts who
wished
to define him, whether it was the doctors
who
set timelines on his illness, or a stockbroker
who
thought he should go all tech stock in 2000.
Sometimes
I almost wondered if he possessed
the
wisdom of a shaman in the way his insights
seemed
to transcend the boundaries of practical
knowledge.
For all of these things and more, he
will
be greatly missed.
—
Martin Mugar
