Gift Ideas or Whatever

Felix Christmas 2006

So many of my memories of Felix revolve around the winter holidays, Thanksgiving to New Year's. He was diagnosed with Biphasic Pleural Mesothelioma on December 20, 2017 and had to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in the hospital. While preparing for the 2nd Christmas without him, a year after his death, I came across this email from him from December 20, 2006 when he was 17 years old. It's his Christmas list, and it's so Felix. It's amazing how much of it was still stuff he loved. The title of this blog post is the subject of that email.











Hi mom,

I can't send pictures of my house right now because I don't know where the thingy is but I can give you some ideas for Christmas gifts.

For clothes I like tight jeans and trousers size 26 or 27. shirts small. I need some cute knit mittens in a neutral color. I could also use a sweater, not a huge one. actually, sweaters would be awesome. I don't have any. I like cable knit ones with interesting designs knit into the sweater. Think sorta old man like clothes. The colors I like for clothes are neutrals, browns, taupes, dark blue, very light colors, any earthy colors. I lost all my blue sapphire earring studs so I need more. I'll keep better track of them this time. I want to have 8 going up my ear. Oh, I always love a belt or a buckle. I have found that I am a size nine in shoes not a nine and a half. I like Vans and old looking shoes and I could use some boots that my feet aren't swimming in, old lace up ones. Oh, and knee socks. Knit ones.

I like small fun things right now, like stickers and temporary tattoos and charms or just any mini thingy. I like little containers. I like blank books without spiral spines. I like postcards and stationary, small but meaningful is good or old. Oh, and yarn, lots of yarn, same colors as clothing, maybe a little brighter. I would love to have sheet music of oldies. I would also like that Dresden Dolls book. I like Dresden Dolls merchandise. Any merchandise from old bands I like would be cool too like Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, The Doors, Mamas and Papas, old bands like that. Like shirts and stuff. I like cute plants and herbs. NO CACTUS! If I had a planter box I would love to grow herbs and pretty plants in it or just have potted plants for my house and they have to be in planters that are black earthy or dark green or brown. I like witchy supplies and books.

For beauty products I like really natural stuff without sodium lauryl sulfate or whatever it's called. I need washes that are balanced, not too acidic, not too base. Facial masks are awesome. Travel sized lotions I like or any other lotion that smells hippieish. Maybe something lilac or clove or a scent that matches my astrological sign. I like astrological stuff. I can always use wax strips, the Sally Hanson ones. And aromatic oils are nice. I like clove oil stuff. I like lily as a scent. Oh, and lip balm. I like red eye liner. Oh, and I like that Burt's Bees cover up or some tinted moisturizer that's neutral, in pale tones. Henna would be fun.

I'm kinda tired of this. Hope it helped.

love, felix

Felix's Victorian Memorial Picnic

On Memorial Day Weekend 2019, we held a Victorian picnic at Felix's grave at Forefather's Burying Ground in Chelmsford, MA. It was also the unveiling of his grave marker.

 

 

The death head design on the grave marker was chosen because it was a design Felix was drawn to. There were many photos of different gravestones with death heads on them amongst his photos. The infinity symbol with a heart above was something Felix drew frequently. His favorite symbol was the infinity symbol, and the theme of love was recurrent in his art, writing, and musical choices.

 

 

 

We started the day with the picnic lunch. In attendance were me (his mom, Elizabeth Parise), siblings Frankie, Bekah, Lillian, Jack, and Luke; his grandparents David and Jill Brow; Auntie Sarah and her husband Marc; Felix's cousins Wesley and Elessar Brow-Hill; great aunt Bronwyn and great uncle Tom, and Bekah's longtime friend from Concord Sienna.



 

We then moved closer to the family burial plot for a reading of the following quote

 The country knows not yet, or in the least part, how great a son it has lost. It seems an injury that he should leave in the midst his broken task, which none else can finish- a kind of indignity to so noble a soul, that it should depart out of nature before yet he has been really shown to his peers for what he is. But he, at least, is content. His soul was made for the noblest society; he had in a short life exhausted the capabilities of this world. Wherever there is beauty he will find a home.

                     Ralph Waldo Emerson
                     from his eulogy for Henry David Thoreau






We planted plants and wildflower seeds around Felix's gravestone and the family monument

 

 

Bekah then "treated" us to a haunting and irreverent kazoo solo that surely would have amused Felix for what seemed like hours.



Sarah gave us a tour highlighting some of our many ancestors in Forefather's Burying Ground starting with the Davis family plot where Felix is buried.

 

 

 

 

 



 

Window Displays

 

 

Art is more than just paintings hanging in a gallery. Art can be found in more mundane places, such as in department store windows. In NYC and other high fashion cities, visual displays for the stores of top designers have certainly been elevated to that of art. That is how Felix came to start working in this industry, as many scenic designers do.

 

 

 

Felix’s first foray into the world of window displays began with a Great Gatsby themed Henri Bendel holiday window in October of 2012, not as a designer but creating some of the elaborate pieces for the design. This was being created before, during, and after Superstorm Sandy while Felix was living in Brooklyn. He waited in long lines for the shuttle to Manhattan in dedication to his art, and this wouldn’t be this last time he braved difficult conditions in the name of art.

 

While working for a company called LIV, Felix painted some astounding and outstanding backdrops for the Ralph Lauren holiday window on 5^th avenue. Felix’s expert scenic painting technique made the flat canvas look like an elaborate gilded velvet curtain.

 

 

 

 

When his supervisors at LIV formed their own company, BigHeavy Studios, they knew they needed to bring Felix on board. They said that they wouldn’t have been able to start the company without him, and it was the only way they were able to get accounts like Tory Burch and Club Monaco. One of the owners said that Felix was the most talented artist and designer he had worked with in his 30 years in the business.

 

 

 

Felix designed and created many incredible window displays during his time at BigHeavy Studios including cardboard logs, plastic wine glass snowflakes, and grey felt flowers for Club Monaco, and stunning birch trees for the Tory Burch holiday windows at the top 5-6 stores internationally, but Felix was most proud of his work on the Club Monaco installation at Grand Central Terminal described in his Historic Preservation essay.

 

 

 

Fading Memories: a poem by Sarah Brow-Hill

He was just here
I can reach out and touch those memories
Those moments spent with him
Though they move further away everyday
Fading into the past...
I fight to hold them close
But like him
They are becoming lost to me

 

 



Historic Preservation

Wheeler Harrington House, Concord MA

I was 7 years old in 1997 when my mother and I left NY and moved to Concord, MA. We were making a new start in the town of my mother’s ancestors. Being there felt like home, and through this connection began my appreciation for Historic Preservation. The many well preserved houses with plaques marking their original inhabitant and construction date, invited onlookers to share in the history of the structure. I would walk around town comparing the styles of houses by decade, thinking of my ancestors who had walked these same paths, their purpose and intentions made tangible in the landscape. From the dark cramped attic of a Greek Revival home on Main Street, we made a new start as my ancestors had. This is exactly the undertaking that I wish to pursue at Boston University, to make a new start with a Masters in Preservation Studies, and to fulfill a fascination that I have carried with me from my first years in Concord.

In high school, I sought out as many courses in architecture, and specifically drafting, as I could. I wanted to be able to perfectly communicate my own ideas but also the proportions and motifs of historic architecture. This yen started with a drafting course at the high school, and later lead me to courses at Boston Architectural Center and Pratt. Though I received very good grades in these high school pre-college architecture programs, I settled on applying to a degree in set design from Purchase College, as I knew I could easily get in, and I did.
 



Felix in the Purchase College Design Tech Studio, 2008

It was the idea of designing sets for a specific time period that interested me most. I received high praises for my drafting skills and my abilities to compile meaningful design sources and research. What I did not conceive of at the time was the fact that those sets I would be designing are disposable and destined for the landfill. This is one of the reasons why Preservation Studies appeals to me now. The act of preservation seeks to keep intact what already exists and to only add missing items that will help to clarify the story of a building, it’s a sustainable practice that keeps buildings out of landfills and repurposes the structures for many useful years to come. I want to be a part of meaningful research that resurrects a building from the past, both from documentation and field study investigation techniques.
 

Felix working on the Club Monaco installation at Grand Central Terminal

I have had the opportunity to employ research and detailed draftings in my work over the past few years, most notably on a fashion show in Grand Central Terminal for Club Monaco. My boss did not specify that I should use existing motifs from Grand Central, he asked me to simply “make it look Victorian”, but I couldn’t help myself from researching the rich vocabulary of neoclassical motifs in the Beaux-Arts building. The project consisted of a handful of kiosks, one of my kiosks was decorated with painted motifs and one was decorated with cotton rope. For the painted kiosk, I drafted a motif from a cast iron transom grill found above some of the platform entrances. I then transferred a full scale drafting of the motif and transferred the design to the kiosk using traditional scenic painting techniques. For the rope kiosk, I researched linear and twisting motifs that lent themselves to being constructed out of rope. The primary motif that I drew from is seen in the iron grille of the windows overlooking the main concourse. Working on this project helped me to understand a need I have to work with people who understand the importance of being specific within the design parameters of a particular style of architecture. It is at Boston University that I seek likeminded individuals within Preservation Studies to learn from and work with and put to greater use my knowledge and skills.

Finished Club Monaco kiosk at Grand Central Terminal

 

Art and Illness

 

Art was a great source of comfort for Felix throughout his illness. He had an immense depth to his emotions, yet he was fiercely introverted. As one of his friends and colleagues said, “Felix lived and breathed art. There was no separation between the two.” It only made sense that he would turn to art even more during his battle with terminal cancer.

Felix had just started a job as an art director with Anthropologie, and was being trained as an art director for one of the high volume Manhattan stores when he was diagnosed in December of 2017. He had been working frantically on his designs for the upcoming spring window even with a large pleural effusion around his left lung that had completely collapsed it leaving him constantly short of breath and coughing. He didn’t cry when he was given his Mesothelioma diagnosis but he did cry when he had to quit his job to undergo aggressive treatment.

A few months later, after 3 surgeries and 5 weeks of radiation, as he started aggressive chemotherapy and an experimental drug therapy, Felix took on a job making headpieces for a production of Peter Pan at Bard College. He didn’t let on that he was sick to the production team so they wouldn’t worry about him creating them while he had dangerously low white blood cell counts requiring daily Neulasta injections and was going through rigorous legal depositions and hauling headpiece supplies back and forth on the subway. His pieces were a huge success, especially the disco ball headpiece for Tinkerbell which was often called “the star of the show.” For Felix it was more than just an individual job, it was a return to a little piece of his former life and love.

Felix also created art to deal with his complicated emotions during this time. He created a Love collage as a type of vision board of his hopes for the future. His sunset on the beach painting was made to express the joy and solace he found there. And the self portrait of his battered body shows his inner conflict between his struggle to live and the heartache over the destruction of his once vibrant and beautiful body in this dark, ominous painting.

Finding Felix: About the Exhibit

 

 

Felix Brow-Westbrook was a 28 year old artist and designer living and working in NYC when he was unexpectedly diagnosed with Biphasic Pleural Mesothelioma, a rare and aggressive cancer caused by asbestos exposure almost never seen in people in their twenties. Felix died just under a year after his diagnosis. This exhibit explores his life as an artist and seeks to discover more about Felix the person through the lens of Felix the artist.

Felix was always an artistic person. Spending much of his early childhood on the campus of Purchase College, he was often surrounded by art and other artists, not to mention the many artists in his family including his mother, a dancer, and his father, a photographer.

As he grew up, it became obvious that he was different from other kids, with his creativity and “old soul” being part of his endearing charm. People that knew him as a child still fondly recall his wise demeanor that was beyond his years.

The name of the exhibit, “Finding Felix,” comes from an essay written by Matt Williams, his mentor at Spoleto Festival USA. Part of “finding Felix” was trying to gather up the work he left behind, as much of it was created for temporary uses. Not only that, but Felix’s art was so much a part of him that it echoed throughout his life in every aspect, he was constantly creating. With that, came the challenge of finding all that could possibly be found and using it to convey Felix.

The first image pictured is the first photograph Felix ever took at 5 years old. It shows the unique way he looked at the world, through a lens of his own. The exhibit then follows his career, with his days at Spoleto Festival USA and his window designs, his house painting which is a symbol of his own being, and the work he created while he was ill. It ends with pieces created by others in his honor.

 

Explanation of Dream House

Painting of the house on Sudbury Road in Concord, MA, by Felix in 2017

Through his teen years, Felix found solace is an old house near his home in Concord Massachusetts. The house was falling apart and abandoned but Felix loved it and wanted badly to be able to restore it. In fact, he tried many times to reach out to the absent owner of the house, but he was a completely inaccessible recluse. 



Anna in her dress

The house was a metaphor to Felix, of the parts of himself that he felt could not be expressed. It was where he housed his oppressed femininity. He also deeply identified with Anna, one of the previous young inhabitants of the house. In the house, he came across some of her belongings such as her dress and some Polaroid pictures.

The house was eventually torn down, and to say Felix was heartbroken is an understatement. Following that, Felix wrote a journal entry, included here, in which he speaks of the house's meaning to him. He also painted an image of the house, with him running towards it, as if he was running home after being gone for a while.



Felix in Anna's dress with his friends in Concord, MA

Dream House: The House on Sudbury Road

February 27, 2017

No, it wasn’t the physical building itself I lost; it was the part of me that I kept there. In my dreams, I traveled to that house, its rooms and contents expanded in my sleep and became the symbolism of my dream language. When I was alone in my mind, all the days shut up in my room, my mind wandered and I could picture going up the front steps through the light red door, and the way the light filtered through the dusty transom panes. How beautiful abandonment could be. In the detritus and decay, I lay the parts of me that I kept hidden. In waking life, I had to abandon the rejected parts of me, the feminine parts, the sensitive parts, my freedom, my dreams, vulnerable things. There was my shelter, my alter.

Anna Newman was my friend and she was this fragment of my psychic being, the dark side of my moon. I thought that if I shut up those parts of myself, because they had this place to exist, that I could return to them later. No, now it is gone, a part of myself is lost. And a time in my life that I feel I was not fully able to experience, I can not go back to.

In the absence of a psychiatrist, the house taught me to accept myself. It was the afterlife, the only place my dream soul could survive when I cast it out. That’s always what I meant when I said “dream house.”

Farewell dream house, trust, self-awareness, female intuition, safety, dreams, spirits, Anna, solitude, afterlife, staircase of shoes, typewriter in the attic, ominous twangs of the grandfather clock at midnight

Finding Felix: a Memory Memorial by Matt Williams

Felix came to me via an apprentice application, I hired him over the phone during a somewhat incomprehensible phone call – I was deep inside a Target in DC and found it a bit hard to hear him speak, but then again I always did.

I went with my gut, I must say.  My old opera boss in DC hired me for Spoleto in 1993 much the same way, and I just ‘went with it’, and felt like I’d give Felix a whirl, he was still in school at that point – it was 2010.

The first season he was at Spoleto was a mad whirlwind of fake flowers, baskets and swords, and really the best part of that year was our crew photo – “Alice in Wonderland” with Felix in a ridiculous little dress, against a ‘V’ of “Flora” scenery, with me as the Mad Hatter, pouring tea.

 Sussy, my Number One, was corralling a fake dog.  It was a piece of art.

Felix was with me for eight years, and every year he got a bit braver jumping in on projects, and making his presence known.  After a couple of seasons, I came to think of him as my ‘mission’ – I was Hagrid,  he was  my ‘magical creature’, and it was my responsibility to take care of him, make sure he was doing okay, and keep feeding him artistic projects that he could just run off into a corner and finish perfectly.  Even if they did get cut. I’m thinking of a huge basket he wove of Zip-Ties for “Matsukaze”, which was a sparkling piece of genius – the basket, not the show -  but the director and designer didn’t go for it.  Sad !!

It was during “Kepler” in 2012 that I first saw the effect Felix was having on visiting designers, once they’d spent some time around him.  We were backstage at the Sottile, getting through another endless tech rehearsal, and the designer, who was a bit of a putz, came up to me and said, “you know, I’m straight and everything but … I have to say I’m kind of in love with Felix” …. I just patted him on the arm and said “yeah, Andrew, it’s okay …. Everybody is.”

I always felt badly for putting Felix through the hellish experience of “El Niño” in 2014, but he did so well, brilliantly painting a series of puppets with a wonderfully complex broken glaze sort of treatment, which of course was completely invisible in the ‘blinding headlight’ lighting design, which was just awful.  Felix posed with some of the puppets later. I think even he was impressed by his work on those.

2013 saw our beloved Italians come to Charleston for the first time, and it was a delightful Charm Offensive, Felix was in command backstage and we all had a wonderful experience getting the show done, Felix had a grand time there and did some wonderful bits for the show.

The same Italians came back two years later for ‘Veremonda’ and Felix was again delightful, coming up with some nutty ideas for hand props and struggling mightily to build a small folding table.  He was upset that his carpentry wasn’t better and I just stood him still one day and said: “Felix, no one can do everything and you’re my One-Man Art Department – and I’m grateful for that.”  I feel sure he blushed.

And now we come to “Farnace”, which we did in 2017, a Vivaldi opera, and my very favorite Felix story.  It was a late-arriving ‘concept project’ that apparently the costume and set designer had chatted about, and even produced a sketch, but the process had stopped there.

One day the set designer sheepishly produced this sketch, of a harness with rings front and back, which could and did get attached to the singer and the floor, she was dragged around by it a bit, like you do.

So Francis showed me the sketch and said ‘What do you think?’

I said “ if the costumer has this done in NY and shipped down, it won’t fit and it’ll have to be rebuilt, AND it’ll cost a damn fortune.

Let me talk to my people about it.”

Well, Felix’s eyes lit up and he said “I’d love to do it. My dad bought me a leather sewing machine to reupholster his car and motorcycle seats, but I ended up making leather harnesses for leather queens with it instead …”

I stared at him for a minute, stopped the story before he could go into details, and the rest is history.  Many meetings, many fittings, FedEx-ing leather bits in, Felix working on the harness in his apartment evenings after work … and then, of course, it was perfect.  He hammered rivets, distressed corners and even did the painting on it.  It was a triumph, and happily it led to more work the next summer with the same designer.

That was sadly Felix’s last year at the Festival.  I had hoped with him skipping 2018, he’d be in good enough shape to come back.

I feel robbed, like we all do, and sorry to have to miss out on his continuing Evolution, which was wonderful to see happening, even if it did mean someday he’d outgrow Spoleto.

Felix was my apprentice, my Journeyman, my assistant, my One-Man Art Department, my Magical Creature, my colleague, and my friend.

Spoleto will be less without him, as are the different worlds he moved in, as is the World in general.

His loss is substantial, heart-breaking, and bewildering. I am still trying to make a feeble effort to understand it.

But I have such a store of wonderful memories of him, taking me shopping for shirts, eating impossibly hot Thai food, sipping on minty Thai cocktails with ice cream afterwards, walking on the beach, snarfing down tacos at Taco Boy on Folly Beach, and fireworks at Middleton …

All of it is part of the Universe now …

And Felix looks at me from photographs and says “ didn’t we have a time together?”

Yes, Felix, we did …. We did indeed.