Though I didn't know Carol, something of her charisma is strongly felt because of those poetic, detailed posts about her on Baren Forum by Robin, Patty Phare-Camp, and others. Being a kind of light that drew others to her, I imagine she was a natural teacher. With Carol gone, a hole in the fabric of life has been made, but it seems she left something of the treasures of transcendence for everyone who knew her.

~Gayle

I wish I could have met Carol in person. We chatted every now and then through email. She was always sweet and was proud of her family and friends. She was knowledgeable about very many things and was a very talented artist.

Carol and I once joked about being invisible Tribal Sisters. She supported me and believed in me when I was frustrated. What a beautiful spirit she was.

So, Dear Carol In Sacramento . . . Thank YOU for shining your light with us. Thank goodness for Barenforum for bringing us together.

Love,
Bette Norcross Wappner
Erlanger, KY USA

I did not have the pleasure of meeting Carol personally, either, but she was a wonderful Baren friend. And, anyone who has her etching press in her dining room has to be a printmaker through and through! If there is a Studio in the Sky I'm sure she is there printing and, more importantly, helping the newbies right and left. She will be missed here on earth.

Hi Julio, Bette, Sharri, Gayle and those who drop in to read. Carol knew she had real friends in many baren forum folks.She is I am sure honored by this memorial and is smiling on all of us. Only time kept me from knowing her a lot longer, and only distance kept you from knowing her better. But all you say is true. She wasn't perfect, I suppose, but no one is. Friends have called her these things in the past few days-real people, a guiding light, a muse, a mentor, a fast and loyal friend, giving, smiling, generous, loving, talented, wise, brilliant...sheesh. she was all of that. But I am seeing so much good now, to follow the intense grief of suddenly losing her. Imagine, she had no decline in her mental or artistic powers. Her wrists didn't wanna carve much more hard wood so I had the honor of cutting a couple of woodblocks for and with her. One was a complete collaboration- a black cat. Her neighbor had it and she drew it on steps. I suggested a bowl and a falling star to go with the moon. She drew the design, then I carved it. She printed it in black, then I hand colored some and she the rest. We finished our handmade book project in December and completed the grant cycle. Carol organized a public show at the library with printing (Patti) Book Arts (Carol and Sharon Tanovitz of Art Ellis) Claire Ellis (no relation) of the Sacramento room at the library and myself with rare books, and music and video by moi. Artists Sam Tubiolo and Felipe Davalos graced us with a visit. So our 18 month odyssey to chase down a small dream- that we would begin to design, publish and sell beautiful books we made from scratch, containing our work and the work of others, came to pass. I hope to be fortunate to continue doing so, but the set we made is now our only one, and there are just a few left. I really like the one I "collaborated" with Patti on...I want to do a set of books with her. ok, tigger? : ) I originally met carol as part of my on and off video project to document bareners showing their work, or making it. I guess i got a lil more involved than perhaps I intended. Once I met carol I really wanted to learn from her, and be close to her. She was so good to me I felt blessed. Now I have just learned from Carol's friend Kristen that the Dalai Lama will come to our town in 2009. I will greet him for Carol if I can. I am working with video on Carol and writing a memoir of sorts. Im doing well. I miss her but I am rejoicing she will never suffer here again, until a proper ration of joy will be included. I also feel sure my spirit and hers will once again meet, further on up the road, so my blessings are multiple. We will know each other somehow. I feel i found love in this life and I don't need to look for it again. I have it within me. Somebody asked me if I'd seen "The parrots of Telehraph Hill", and yes, Carol and I watched it. It was really sweet. And it didn't escape us that I too, came to shoot a story and fell in love with the subject, and stuck around.

Im sorry I had to disappear for a while, but Carol was keeping me up on the baren news- now I have to report directly.

I am thinking about getting rid of my car, as I feel I might do a lot more art if I don't wander as much- and i feel so much like all the right things i need to continue are really near at hand. So if I do that i will save thousands a year, as i walk to work and use my bike in town. This will I think break me of the illusion that there is somewhere better for me to be than right here where i came out of love and curiosity and where i met so many real artists that i realized my place in helping them continue to unite as a consciousness-raising spirit within the community.

Our project involved the collaboration of at least a dozen artists, poets, and craftspeople, and there were more in the wings who were willing to join us in the creation of a sort of blend of the art magazine, the hand-crafted book, the original artwork, the print, the poem, and the design of exotic and beautiful paper-original music, even video art was included, as well as documentary. So it was a true multimedia experience. Carol was so generous with her time, and her friends, that I met and was warmly received by many of them, and got a more personal, and deep look at their work and themselves because I was at her side- and she was a most trustworthy ,( and fun!) guide to art appreciation. So what we began we actually completed. The deadline for the project was only a couple months ago, and we made it, with help from her friends- but no one worked harder on it, and believed in it more, and had their stamp on it more fully than did she. I thought it up in the start- but it was begging to be done...that all these artists participate in a grand project that would symbolize- what? Well, for each something different- but for all, something similar... we reaffirmed our love for Carol and worked with her to create, so that we were one, in a way demonstrable to the world. And now what carol produces will partly be seen in the work she leaves behind, but just as important is the seeds she planted in the territory of our minds and hearts. Like the orchid that sat on her table as a gift from me, that now sits on my table as one from her family, I want to see the blooming of the potentials that stirred me up.

One of the last books she gave me to read was "The Botany of Desire" by Michael Pollan. Johnny Appleseed was an amazing man, and a real one. I myself have researched him in the past, and seem to have some spiritual connection to him. Pollan tells us how apple seeds are heterozygous, so that if you plant one you might get big purple apples or tiny yellow ones- they will be unique to the tree and not to the parent. Apples originated in a forest in Kazakhstan where hundreds of apples of every description make a magical forest.

So I have thought in these terms about human beings- that some are grafted to be as their parents were, and are unlikely to mutate much, and they and their lineage are satisfied, but some- are planted from seed, and like the drifting orb of a milkweed pod that bursts forth in the autumn wind, and sails- they have little chance of taking root in friendly soil, and little chance to live within the garden of whatever making their parents kept... or perhaps that garden was lost, or stolen, as in the Eden metaphor. Another author Carol planted in me like a world of strange and ancient ferns is Loren Eisely, the poet/anthropologist. He roamed the no-man's lands of the west with the railroad bums, ate from a tin can, and sought the bones of men a million years gone. When i think of an America I can understand, now, instead of the short history of transplanted Europeans and the rest, i dwell in his world, one of nighttime and loneliness, and deep curiosity, and wonder at nature and the entire world within the Soul. And I know that I was planted from seed, as Carol was, and far across the desert, under the stars, I can see two tumbleweeds racing into the darkness, and a falling star to cement the scene in memory...and I wake up, in my armchair, and its another day- no grafting from the tired dregs of yesterday., not for this one I have to plant this, now, reality too, from seed.

Peace .
The Wrambling wreck
SacTown

I knew Carol for many years. I was here UPS delivery man to her work at Art Ellis, and here home across the street. She is missed by many, and by me.
UPS Dale