Featured Artist
Featured Artist
I was browsing through a stack of old letters this evening and found a brief one from my friend, Tony Lee. I attended Sheridan College School of Crafts and Design in the late seventies when Tony and I both were focused on the furniture studio. I continued in that direction but, Tony found his place in the glass quonset. We were good friends for the two years I was there.
My recollections of Tony often find him late for some event in the throws of some manner of misfortune. He drove an Alfa Romeo at that time, a handsome car which caught fire and burned up by the side of the QEW one morning. No one was hurt but, Tony missed a class or two that day. He replaced that with a good looking used VW bus which promptly blew it's engine at considerable expense. He missed a few classes as he struggled to make it on time until that work was finished. A friend threw a good party one evening and we all waited for Tony, to find that he was, again, on the side of the road with a flat tire and a flat spare.
Prior to attending Sheridan, Tony had rented a studio space in Toronto and set up a small woodworking shop. We spent a few good times together there until one morning the newspapers had a story of an important bust of an organized crime ring which, inevitably, was rostered in the adjacent space to Tony's shop and it seemed best to let that lease expire without him. Just one more, we were chatting one day and he was telling a story of his recent lateness with, "I hit a pedestrian". The words rolled off his tongue as though it were routine and I sat stunned for a moment. Again, no injuries but, that was the life of Tony at that time. The life of Tony was also, that he never, ever let it get him down and he was a bright light and an ever present laughter in the community of, often morose art students
After graduating, I returned to the states and we lost touch. I often thought about him but assumed that he would have left Toronto and there would be too many Tony Lees to ever find him, alas. He was then obsessed with pursuing glass work in Italy then and we laughed that he could change his name to Tony Leoni.
So, it was with terrible sadness that I gave Google a shot tonight and found the news of Tony's passing, far too young. Treasure your friendships as I sit here regretting the good times that I missed with dear Tony. I'm glad to know that he had a caring community around him.
Please feel free to drop me a line, as well. I'd love to hear more of Tony's life and beautiful work.
Bruce Linthicum - belinthicum@yahoo.com
