HErb Sturz
One of my dearest and beloved friends, Herb, passed this May 2021. I drew this with loving memory. If you are interested in purchasing a limited edition signed print, I will donate all of the proceeds to Vera Institute of Justice, an organization Herb helped found. Please email me if you are interested.
At his memorial I told this story to accompany the drawing. Here it is:
I met Herb through another lovely man and dear friend we’ve recently lost, Greg Farrell. Herb was a fellow artist. A writer, a poet, a dreamer, a thinker. He was penpals with Steinbeck and drinking buddies with Alan Watts and Dylan Thomas. Our friendship read poems and literature and sang old tunes. Herb was first in my art studio when I had new work to share. Likewise he shared his great visions: Reiker’s Island and so much more. We read Moby Dick aloud.
With Herb’s passing my heart ached and my brain fevered fleets of houseboats until the arrival of the Dulcinea. She appeared like a leaf falling from a tree onto my drawing table in a sea of walnut ink on paper. I was confused when the Dulcinea appeared and then I remembered Herb’s story. The Dulcinea is a houseboat Herb won in a poker game. Her maiden voyage sailed Herb, Greg, their wives, Elizabeth and Cathy and their dogs, Blueberry and Trottwood, over the Hudson to Lake Champlain and back again. They feasted on Elizabeth’s delicate fruit pies, drained cases of Burgundy and dove with sea scouts among the mudflats, coming up garlanded with yellow foliage was how he described it. On their return, a thunderstorm and squall came out of nowhere roiling the Hudson into Homer’s wine dark sea. Miraculously the Dulcinea delivered them safely home with a bottle of Burgundy to spare.
All boats are enchanted. They serve to sail the noble from peril to paradise in the mere twinkling of an eye over a zillion leagues and sometimes with a bottle of burgundy to spare. And so I built this - painted this - for you Herb - for all of us here today to see you off.
I love you. Travel safe.
………
Here is a link to his obituary that ran in the New York Times.
