Each Day is Valentine's Day

[A quilt by Elizabeth Caldwell Talford Scott.]

Today was an amazing day. I knew that it would be, but at the same time I was not looking forward to it. Today I went to the funeral of Elizabeth Caldwell Talford Scott, the mother of Joyce J. Scott. You always hear people saying that they don't want their funeral to be sad, they want it to be a celebration. But for all those good intentions, I have never been to a funeral that truly was a celebration. Until today.

The chapel at the Joseph Brown Funeral Home practically vibrated with all the creative energy and talent that was assembled in that room, too many names to even drop, the Who's Who of the Baltimore art scene and beyond, faces I recognized from MICA, the BMA, The Reginald F. Lewis Museum, and The Creative Alliance. Many of these friends of Joyce had known her mother for many years, some had known her their whole life. They spoke lovingly of memories of Elizabeth, all of which of course also included Joyce. Lorraine Whittlesey, Joyce's collaborative partner in Ebony & Irony, played the organ before and during the service. Aissatou Bey-Gracia and Kay Lawal Muhammed (Joyce's other half in The Thunder Thigh Revue) gave a spoken word performance of "Ode to Mama Lizzie," a poem by Joyce for her mother. George Ciscle, Dr. Leslie King-Hammond, Oletha Devane, Ellen Burchenal, and Linda DePalma gave their remembrances of Elizabeth, as did Kweisi Mfume, just three days after he spoke at William Donald Schaeffer's funeral.

I learned a lot about Mama Lizzie today that made me wish even more so that I could have really known her. By the time I met her in 2008 she was in need of 24-hour care, and could only communicate with Joyce and a few who knew her best and took care of her. This was at the time that I had asked Joyce to take a role in "Smalltimore". Though Joyce wanted to do it, it meant less time with her mother, and having to make arrangements for her care during the many hours Joyce would be on the set. To my eternal gratitude, Joyce worked it out and was able to take the role. Not many people know this, but originally the character's name was Mrs. Wainwright. The character is a wealthy, eccentric, widowed artist, and I thought "Wainwright" sounded like a rich name, and it was also the last name of a close friend. But I wanted to do something to show Joyce how honored I was that she took the role, and something to honor her mother, for the sacrifice, so I told Joyce that I would like to change the character's name to Mrs. Talford. So that is how that came to be.

I learned today that Elizabeth Caldwell Talford Scott has had her artwork exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art; has taught workshops at The Smithsonian Museum; and had received the Women's Caucus for Honor Award for Outstanding Achievements in the Visual Arts. I learned more than I had already known about the sacrifices she had made for Joyce, learned more about the passions she instilled in Joyce, and learned about the ones that didn't take, such as cooking and gardening.

I flashed back to a recent event, Joyce speaking at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum shortly after the opening of the group show, "Material Girls," a current exhibit at the museum in which Joyce has several pieces. Before she started to talk that day, she first broke into song, which Joyce is prone to do at any given moment. "There'll be one child born..." she sang, "to carry on..." She sang the whole song. Her audience was so rapt that other than her voice you could have heard a pin drop. I wrote about that day a few posts earlier in this blog, and I mentioned that I became emotional several times during her talk, but especially during this song. Before that, I didn't know exactly what she was going to be talking about that day. When she sang it, I knew that she was about to talk about her mother. And, knowing her mother's age and health, I flashed forward to the day that was closer than we could have known at the time - the day that Joyce would have to say goodbye to her mother.

Joyce appeared to be very strong and calm today. It truly felt as if this vibration of love, respect, admiration, and joy, was helping Joyce to lift her mother's spirit to the sky. My own strength came and went, as I felt her pain, and thought of my own loss eight years ago when I was with my Dad for the last five weeks of his very short life. The service was flowing gently through the scheduled songs and speakers. About halfway through the program, I believe it was after Leslie and Oletha spoke, Joyce, unscripted, began to sing. She stayed in her seat in the front row, looking straight ahead, and sang, "My Funny Valentine," from beginning to end. No one moved a muscle. I heard someone whisper that it had been one of Elizabeth's favorite songs. One by one, people, myself included, wiped a tear, then two, then three, trying to be discreet, wishing we had Joyce's strength, wishing we could be as strong as her, for her.

"Don't change a hair for me. Not if you care for me. Stay, Funny Valentine, stay...
Each day is Valentine's Day..."

Finally, on the last two words, Joyce's voice broke.
As did my heart.

And others who refuse to admit,
That life without magnanimous love ain't worth spit.
That Mama Lizzy and her contemporaries will bust the universe and wax
Contrary,
She's the silver horizon between dusk and dawn.

~ from "Ode to Mama Lizzie"
by Joyce J. Scott

Resolve, Rekindled

[Me with Cici Carmen (lead actress) and Michelle Farrell (DP) at the premiere of Gone Forever (writer /director Jason Baustin) at the AFI Theater in Silver Spring.]

The last couple of months have felt a little... off. Some financial realities are setting in. I knew the winter months would be slow, but I was hoping by now, mid-April, I would have a few more summer projects set in stone. Michelle assures me that this is still the slow time, but she is also worried that the dawn of the DSLR camera may be costing freelancers like ourselves a lot of business. That may be part of it, but it takes a lot more than buying a camera to make a movie. I think that a larger part of the problem is that the economy still sucks. Making an independent film is, in some ways, a luxury. And in a bad economy, luxuries are the first thing to go.

Recently a project fell through that would have kept me both busy and paid for a few months. Not worth going into the details of it, and as a professional, I wouldn't anyway. Long story short, some things are more important than money. Things such as integrity, sanity, happiness, blood pressure, and my reputation as a producer. I take all of the above very seriously. Money to me is a well that always finds a way to refill itself. I always find a way to land on my feet.

A few weeks of stress was luckily followed by a few days of being reminded why I do what I do and that there are people out there who are glad that I do it. Friday afternoon I showed the rough cut of a new music video to a client, Tony Bonz, and he absolutely loved it. It was a very fun project to work on, and Tony put all of his trust in me, and Michelle, to manifest his vision into a tangible product. Though that trust helps to make a project go smoothly, in a way it adds more pressure to get it right. But also more satisfaction when you do!

Then yesterday I attended the premiere of "Gone Forever", a dramatic short by writer/director Jason Baustin that I was producer and AD on last fall. Jason really went all out. The premiere was at the AFI Theater in Silver Spring, a fantastic venue, and included a catered lunch for all attendees, as well as professionally packaged DVDs for cast & crew. It was so good to see all the friendly faces of the people with whom I spent 5 days in the trenches seven months ago. It was a very ambitious, challenging piece to make (more than a dozen locations in a 25 minute script, car crash, SFX, shot on The Red) but it all went pretty smoothly, with an ace group of cast and crew. Seeing two projects that I am very proud to be associated with come to fruition really eased the disappointment of the cancelled project, and shored up my resolve to follow my instincts.

At the premiere, a friend I hadn't seen since the "Gone Forever" shoot (we used a room in his house as one of our locations) told me that he just watched "Smalltimore" again a couple nights ago. To hear that, of course, would make me happy at any time, but the timing made it mean a little more to me. Also in the last few days, an actor who was in "Smalltimore" called me to order three DVDs he wanted to give to some people from WBAL who are interviewing him about something else, and Minas Gallery contacted me to bring them another batch of DVDs as they have sold all the ones they had in stock. Combined, these little bits of encouragement totaled the shot in the arm I was in need of at this moment.

A good friend of mine, whose job was making him absolutely miserable, called me earlier in the week to sound off. He was considering quitting his job without having a job, which is usually not advisable, but the work situation was truly effecting both his physical and mental well-being. Being a bit stressed about the flow of income myself these days, I hesitated, at first, to encourage him to quit. But I know him well enough to know that he had already made up his mind, and was looking more for support than advice. Life is too short, I said. I can't stress that enough, to anyone, ever. He turned in his resignation the next day and has been celebrating ever since.

Some things are more important than money.

Most things, actually.