Anne’s Masks At The Small Gallery

“Look for the Alligator,”  Anne said to me when she told me she was going to be in the Halloween Parade.

I’d always thought of Anne as a serious person.  A lot of people are put off by her stern bearing. But I  saw another side of her when she came walking down Main Street with a big green paper mache Alligator mask totally covering her head.

I can’t remember the last time I was at an art opening, but I know it’s been a couple of years at least.  Yesterday our friend and bookkeeper Anne Dambrowski finally had the pandemic delayed exhibit of her masks at the Small Gallery in the Valley Artisan’s Market in town.

I got to know Anne when she was gardening at the first Bedlam Farm.  At that time Jon and I were just friends.  When we moved in together Anne started doing Jon’s bookkeeping too.  Sometimes she’d come around lunch time when I was working in my studio and invite me to share a sandwich that she brought for us.

We don’t spend a lot of time together, but Jon and I have known Anne for years.  We’ve been through a lot including our divorces, starting my business and bankruptcy.

Our friendship has slowly and continuously grown over the years.

I became the godmother to a kitten she was fostering and brought her one of the few things she could eat after she had surgery.  She was there when Jon had Open Heart Surgery, taking care the financial business and being a loving friend.

Anne is an artist at heart.  Before creating her own Bookkeeping business she made original drawings for a hook rug company in Vermont.  She’s also a fencer.  You can see the influence of that in some her masks, like Medussa, whose face is constructed on a fencing mask.

Jon fell for Anne’s bird mask as soon as we walked into the gallery.  And when he saw how much I loved her Orange Cat mask (named after Anne’s cat) he bought me the cat and him the bird.

I know they’ll look great in the farmhouse, we’re having fun talking about where we’ll hang them once the exhibit is over.

Click here to see more photos of Anne’s masks (Gray Cat in action) and Sandy Bretts books which were also at the gallery.