As I’ve often done, I would go to Harbor Park at the Lucerne boat launch, to chat with fellow artist friends at Lakeside Art & Gifts. It’s now scheduled to close on August 31.
Lakeside Art & Gifts has been open for 15 years with many artists showing their projects there over the years. I once had a photography studio in the cottage next to them that bordered the lake. I loved it. Loved gathering some artists of my own there and having a photo backdrop set up there 24/7.
It was called Lucy’s Cottage Studio (it’s been so long since I opened it that I had to Google it to make sure of the name). It was open by appointment and from Thursday to Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Plenty of time to take great photos, and the lighting from the lakeside windows was awesome.
Unfortunately, the Lake County crowd didn’t appreciate my award-winning portrait photography as much as I did, even though my prices were lower than my portrait prices in Sri Lanka. I’m still not sure to this day, why that was. Could it have been that Lucerne was still an out-of-way place in Lake County for people to visit? Or that it was mostly visited by the boating crowd eager to get out and catch fish and sun? Or was it, that with the onset of better smart phone cameras, people took their own portraits?
Early one February morning (in either 2017 or 2018 – I swear that it’s not the mind that goes first, it’s the memory), I got a call from a county worker who said I needed to evacuate Lucy’s Cottage Studio immediately. Torrential rains had swelled the lake and giant waves crashed against the porch and destroyed both the concrete porch and part of the cottage foundation. It was chaos taking everything out quickly and sad as sad could be when the place was empty. The worst part was when I took the Lucy’s Cottage Studio sign down. It broke my heart. What was I going to do with all the stuff that I had removed? Most of it I returned to the artists who consigned to me, some of my framed photographs were sold at festivals, some I put in a thrift shop for a short time and some have ended up in my garage.
Last weekend I went to chat with the fabulous watercolor artist Gytha March at Lakeside Art & Gifts. We dredged up a ton of memories from years past. Gytha and I were born one day apart on the same year. I, on Halloween, and she on November 1, which makes me the older “sister.” We’ve always had a lot to chat about. Our backgrounds couldn’t be more different, though. She has always been a painter. She designed Keno cards way back when while working at a casino, financing her way through college. She became a teacher. She doesn’t swear, whereas I swear like a sailor. I’ve pretty much been in sales, having had been a manufacturer’s rep for gifts and jewelry for 14 years, wedding photographer for 14 years, a writer since I was 9 years old, and a myriad of other things. I once taught macrame where the owner of that shop asked me to teach the class even though I was a beginner taking the class. She said, “Oh, just stay one step ahead of the students.” Which I did. Pretty weird.
I asked Gytha what she’ll do after August 1 when Lakeside Art & Gifts closes. “I have no idea,” she sighed. “No idea where to sell my paintings and no idea if I should even continue painting.” During our time chatting many people came into the shop and bought goods discounted due to the closing. Many! How is it that Lakeside Art & Gifts has been struggling to remain open and now crowds pour in for the 50% off sale items?
“It’s the boat launch,” said Gytha with a tinge of anger in her voice. “It’s closed because it’s clogged with vegetation and the county hasn’t dredged it as promised. The parking lot used to be vibrant; full of boaters and visitors to our shop. There was a fellow there who checked fishing licenses and checked that the boats were clean of mussels, etcetera, before they launched. And now there’s only a few cars in the parking lot and some of them have been there for days.”
Even the duck population doesn’t hang out at the boat launch anymore. People loved feeding the ducks. My dog Toby loved them. I loved them. “Loved.” Past tense.
What’s a girl to do? I’m thinking kayaking….
Lucy Llewellyn Byard is currently a freelance journalist for the Record-Bee. You can email her at lucywgtd@gmail.com
