In part one my story talks about running into my classmate who has taken a one year sabbatical from art school.

I pick up the story from there...

With slightly less than four months left to the school year I experienced the same swift passage of time that has happened in the previous two school years during the second semester.

Joanie was in the midst of her degree project and there are a couple of things I assist her with such as climbing onto the roof of the three story building that housed graphics so she could get some dramatic shots of the city and surrounding streets (we had to get into the attic and open the roof hatch).

One of the true highlights of the school year was getting to know her so well. 

One of many notes from Joanie. This note was related to photographing from the roof as noted in the story above.

On the downside during the school year was this note from my roommate about some silly expense, an over-the-top reaction to some household expenses we each paid for. What started out as a great friendship devolved into a situation where I had minimal contact with him for several months. Finally he mellowed out during the end of the school year. Because of this change for the better we agreed to pay for the apartment over the summer and he'd be returning in the fall to get his Bachelor of Architecture degree.

A kindler, gentler note compared to the one above:

The class that I had started with in the fall of '72 would be graduating in May and it was bittersweet for me. I was happy they had finished their four years and I was sad to think they would not be at school in the fall.

Besides the traditional diploma RISD always has a creative diploma, as well. For 1976's graduating class it was a bubble souvenir that featured some landmarks from the city and the Rhode Is Red Rooster:

Also, in the same issue of the student newspaper were details of the graduation:

Going back in time to freshman year, the talented music student I knew from high school days never ended up auditioning for a slot at Juilliard. She married, while still in college a high school friend from the Seattle area, and finished up her college studies at Berkeley. I received this information in the form of a thoughtfully written letter sent to me during my year off from college in 1974. (I would see her again in the '80s when she and her husband moved to Westchester for a few years relating to his getting a masters degree at NYU.)

Fortunately, it wasn't more than a few months and I was back in Providence to start my sophomore year and the relationship that didn't work out was pushed into the background as I had my friends at school to spend time with.

Below, three friends and how they weaved in and out of my life for the better part of the '70s:

After graduation my friend Joanie was living at home in suburban Fairfield County and working as a designer for one of our part time professors who had his office in Westchester County. During the summer of '76 I filled in for her one week while she went away on vacation with her family and it was a truly memorable experience to work in the design office of such a talented professional that our teacher was.

***

While my sabbatical had been close to the beginning of my time in college, it was just the opposite for Maria. She returned to Providence in late August, '76 to move into an apartment on Benefit Street she was sharing with her friend, Susan. The class she had been a part of had graduated and she would be studying with the students who had been one year behind her.

I was one of the few students left on campus who had been in a class with her freshman year and would graduate the following spring with her.

I ran into her at the school post office a few days before school opened and was thrilled to see her.

The start of the conversation was similar to this:

Hi there! I was hoping I would run into you this week!

Great to see you! How was your summer?

Interesting! I worked for a week for one of my teachers who lives in Westchester. What have you been up to since I saw you last winter?

Lots of reading and thinking. A fair amount of photography and a small amount of travel.

Where are you renting this year?

Up Benefit and very near the Episcopal Cathedral on North Main.

I'm in Colonial, same apartment as last year with Ned. So far I haven't seen him this week. If you have a few minutes I'll show you the apartment since it's so nearby.

Sure, why not?

She had a new, shorter hair style than had been her signature look over the past four years. It appeared her year off had been time well spent away from academia.

My apartment was really suited to one person, but as was the case with so many student apartments one roommate took the bedroom and the other had the living room for a bedroom. In my case I was happy taking the bedroom and Ned had the living room which was sunnier and larger but could not be closed off from the rest of the apartment. There was a back door and stairway that led out to a side street. I used that exit when I was heading north to Star Market or visiting any friends who lived north on Benefit.

"This is a good time for you to see the apartment before it starts getting filled with art projects."

"It's a well laid out space and the views downtown aren't bad, either."

"I get a great sunset in my bedroom window and it's very quiet here since we are at the back of the building."

Below is a plan I made of the apartment from memory which was really quite easy after having lived there for two years. I discovered a few years ago that RISD which owns the building had gutted the interior and one bedroom apartments like mine are now reconfigured as three bedroom apartments and the rear staircase is gone. What was great for one or two people must feel more like a freshman dorm with the new set-up. My friend, Alyssa, had also rented this same apartment circa 1982 and we thought that was quite the coincidence.

Below is the view from one of Ned's windows. The courtyard of the apartment house in the foreground and downtown is just beyond.

My kitchen as seen in the winter of the '76-'77 school year. Besides food such as granola and pinto beans in glass jars, I had some of my darkroom chemicals on the counter when I shot the photo. The kitchen doubled as the area where I developed my black & white film in a stainless steel developing tank. It was the type of detail a photo major like Maria could definitely relate to!

After ten minutes at my place we walked six blocks north on the same street (Benefit Street) so I could see her new apartment. It was a case of Déjà vu because just the year before Joanie had lived just a few more blocks north on Benefit Street. Her apartment was in the back of the house with a view of the backyard and Rhode Island Statehouse in the distance, although the view was mostly blocked in the warm months by trees. She had the same arrangement with a bedroom and living room. She had the living room and Susan, the bedroom. The house looked like it was circa late 1800s by its style--perhaps even earlier.

(Thanks to Google street view I can retrace our steps photographically from that day in 1976.)

My apartment was on the third floor of the complex shown below. The low single story part of the building was the location of Colonial Liquors back when we were students, but no more.

Heading north on Benefit Street is the What Cheer Garage on the left, location of the gallery opening in part one and across the street was Joe's Sandwich Shop which is long gone:

Besides being the route to Maria's apartment this was the street I walked at least once a week to buy my groceries at Star Market. I never tired of seeing the many beautiful old houses and buildings along the way:

Above: the house where Maria lived in '76-'77.

The same house as seen in September, 1976:

Similar view as above as found today on Google street view. Little has changed, although the fence looks like it was replaced with a very similar one:

From the Rhode Island Statehouse looking east was the location of Maria's house--hidden by foliage, but directly in the center of the photo:

Just up the street from her house and looking west towards the Statehouse:

There is so much need to fill each other in on what's happened in the past year that we agree to meet later at the RISD tap room.   

An hour of sitting in the tap room gave me a chance to hear what she had done on her sabbatical. She had lots of nature photos around the area of her hometown in Maine and had made trips to Boston and New York. Her maternal grandmother had passed on in December and she had been glad to have spent so much time with her prior in the months leading up to her death. She had read a lot of books, some on photography, others on philosophy. And she had given some thought to the subject of her degree project.

Back when we were both freshman there had been a photo exhibit by a grad student showing corpses in a morgue. His name was Jeffery Silverthorne and years later he would be a professor at another college in Rhode Island and jumping even more years into the future many of his morgue photos would be on the internet. The grad students who were our teachers engaged us in a discussion. There were questions about the idea that the victims never gave their consent to have their bodies photographed, etc. It was the single most memorable photo exhibit I ever saw during the time I was at school.

Inspired in part by this exhibit from the '72-'73 school year, Maria was already at work photographing roadkill that she had come across in Maine. However, she needed more photos that she would have to take in the coming two months in the Rhode Island/Massachusetts area and asked me if I could help her. 

She would be borrowing Susan's car and I would come along as the spotter since there was the possibility of some roadkill far enough off the road that she, as the driver, might miss. 

I said I'd be happy to help her and looked forward to seeing the countryside around Providence because in all of my time at school I never had a car available to me.

I told her we should have dinner together the following night. I had a lot of vegetables from my grandfather's garden and could saute them for a tasty meal. She said that sounded great. We exchanged phone numbers and headed out the door to our apartments.

Note: I hope to present part three tomorrow...

Text, drawing, and B&W photos are © 2012 by B+Co., Inc.