Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 3, 1994 TAG: 9406040004
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By JEFF DEBELL STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
His popular watercolors won't be hanging on the fence near those of old friends like Harriett Stokes and Kate Woods.
Creasy will be in the hospital. He is gravely ill, and friends are awaiting the worst. The 74-year-old artist's terminal condition has been an open secret for weeks.
Stokes said she and Woods will exhibit as usual.
"It's going to be very sad," she said, recalling how the busy Creasy often worked until midnight Friday to finish paintings in time for the Saturday opening.
"He always said, `I'll be ready,' and he always was."
When it comes to the Sidewalk Art Show, Creasy is not just another artist. He helped found the show 36 years ago. It was from the art show, originally held on Kirk Avenue, that Festival in the Park eventually grew.
He exhibited his paintings every year until this one.
And as a tireless laborer on behalf of all things cultural for half a century, Creasy is a special eminence anyway - an elder statesman of the arts.
"He's been involved in everything good that's happened in the arts in the Roanoke Valley," said Betty Dye, an old friend and longtime member of the Docent Guild of the Art Museum of Western Virginia.
The Sidewalk Art Show is run by the docents as a fund-raiser for the museum.
This year's chairperson, Melody Frank, said the docents originally were going to leave Creasy's exhibit space vacant as a tribute to him. Instead, friends of the artist will prepare an exhibit that recognizes both the man and his many interests.
They include Mill Mountain Theatre, The Arts Place at Old First and the Museum of Theater History, to name just a few. Creasy is known not only for hard work, but for the ideas that lead to the work. He is particularly interested in involving children in the arts and has been a prime mover behind the notion of a comprehensive valley arts festival along the lines of the famous Spoleto USA Festival in Charleston, S.C.
"John Will never left it to anyone else to be visionary about art in the Roanoke Valley," said Ann Masters, a longtime friend and former curator at the museum.
Though not an exhibitor at the Sidewalk Art Show, Masters was part of the group that gathered with Creasy every year. Others, in addition to Woods and Stokes, were Norris Coleman and Anne Bell.
Coleman has given up painting for reasons of health. Bell has moved to Florida. Before leaving, she did a life-size painting of the group on wood. It is part of the City of Roanoke art collection.
For Creasy and his friends, the annual show was more than an art exhibit. It was a social event, highlighted by a gourmet lunch at midday.
For years, the group held court at the same spot near the fountain across from the City Market. After construction of the new Norfolk Southern office building rendered the space unsuitable, the artists moved to an Elmwood Park site under the trees beside Jefferson Street.
That's where Stokes and Woods will be this weekend. But for the first time in 36 years, their friend John Will Creasy won't be with them.
The annual Sidewalk Art Show: Elmwood Park, Saturday 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Sunday noon-5.
by CNB