Friends

always a source of encouragement

Joanna and Kathryn

John at the Cape Croker Pow wow

Hello Joanna,

We share a love of nature, music and things of beauty.  Your being open to enjoy new ideas and expressions keep our friendship fresh and flowing.  Your kindness and good heart will keep bringing new and great people into your walk on Turtle Island.

John

Mark Rosenkrantz
One of Joanna's oldest friends

Dear Joanna


     Over the years Joanna and I have shared experiences and talks that have helped me process what was going on in my life. Our "mitachondria" talks since college have been important in my personal growth. Over 26 years we shared our love of art, nature, and more recently teaching.  Our sharing was intermittent, every few years after college. Now our paths have diverged. I miss our talks..but life and its circumstances change. During the past few years..as Joanna has been creating her new life in Canada, I have been managing my aging and sometimes ill parents in addition to pursuing my teaching career. This has changed me. 
     I wish Joanna the best. I know Joanna is now in the natural environment she loves with a person who cares for her.

   Love, Mark

Nora Tucker

Joanna and I became friends at the University of South Florida around 1974. I joined the university's crisis intervention service, Helpline, and she also became a volunteer. We made many friends in this wonderful organization and remain in touch with some of them to this day.

Of many memorable times involved with Helpline, one in particular was my favorite. On a Friday afternoon, about 18 volunteers left in five cars for a camping trip to High Springs. The veteran campers directed the setting up of tents and organization of the campsite. We ate, drank, and partied into the night.

The next morning 15 of us drove to the springs to head down the river in 13 tubes and a canoe. It was a perfect day and great fun. That night brought magic in the woods. We took on the personas of a cast of characters. Nora, Joanna, and Jan became the three fairies from Sleeping Beauty: Flora, Fauna, and Meriwether. Our friend, Mark, became Bottom and Ray was Puck both from A Midsummer Night's Dream. Our other friends were elves and queens. As we sat around the fire laughing and joking; we didn't think about where we would be in 30 years.

Joanna and I have shared letters, visits with each other in Sarasota and Memphis, and phone calls over the years. We’ve changed professions, interests, and locations. Hopefully, we will continue to be friends across the miles.

Dear Joanna,

I'm so glad to see the beautiful art you have made, the sweet dogs that adore you, and your smiling faces.

Best wishes to you and Paul for a long and happy life together.

Nora Burns Tucker



Nora with her dog Lucy

Mary and Michael
canoeing partners

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Here’s to midnight snowshoe trails in the woods,

full moons and owls,

spring river paddling,

music and songs,

good friends to share them with.

Love,

Michael & Mary

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One of the activities that we enjoy with Mary and Michael is snowshoeing in the bush
They introduced Jo to the magic of moonlight snowshoeing

	The Storm - Mary Oliver Now through the white orchard my little dog romps, breaking new snow with wild feet. Running here, running there, excited. hardly able to stop, he leaps, he spins until the white snow is written upon in large, exuberant letters, a long sentence, expressing the pleasures of the body in this world. Oh, I could not have said it better myself.

Tony
an exceptional artist and a great friend

1)  The greatest artist in the world sat alone at a local Laundromat. Completely destitute, he had lived on the street for years.  No money for paint, brushes or canvas, he had a brilliant idea.  He then took a cup of water, spread out a wrinkled napkin and dipping his finger into the water began to draw the most magnificent work of art ever created.  A minute later, the work disappeared.  Poof!


2)  If Michelangelo sculpted the David out of sand along a beach somewhere, and before anyone else saw it, the tide rolled in and washed it away, would it still be a world wonder?


Joanna Banana paints and sculpts beautiful ideas.  It is an honour for me to see her art and know that what she does will still be there tomorrow for me to see it again.

Keep creating Joanna.  Your gift is there for all to see and share.


Your friend.

Love,

Tony

Valerie

Merry Christmas, Joanna!

As I sit here writing this, I just happen to have the 2nd movement of the Ravel Concerto in G Major on infinite repeat.  How appropriate!  (Do you know it's taken me TWENTY years to finally be able to get a second copy of that?  Some idiocy about not being to import music from France or Russia.  I just "lost"--who the hell knows how?--my second copy of Rach's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paginini and it almost looked like I couldn't replace it.)

You "gave" that to me, among so many other wonderful pieces that have come to mean so much to me, like the Schumann Concerto in A Minor and "Ma Mere L'Oye."  And, of course, our mutual love for Prokofiev's 3rd.  I'll never forget the time we were playing it (the first scale-run section) and it seemed like we couldn't make a mistake.  It was nothing short of a religious experience.  We both said afterwards that our spines tingled!  You always had such a wonderful, expressive touch!  You made the music SING.

So many good memories!  The horse farm.  Remember our "Hogan's Heroes" and "Star Trek" scenarios?  And that young stallion we called Beach Boy?  And Freckles?  And when we would find four of the mares and geldings standing with their heads all at the corners where their stalls touched, like the four states.  I could have sworn they had been talking about us and suddenly fell silent when we approached.  To this day, I feel a little guilty that I once told four separate horses in one day they were my favorite horse in all the world.

Remember the time your station wagon was about out of gas and I jumped out of it while it was still moving to push it to the gas station?  Boy, was that dumb!  Well, I'm laughing as I write this.  Those and so many more treasured memories make a rich tapestry of things I never want to forget and that will always bring a smile to my face.

I feel very fortunate to have known you and had you as a friend all these years.  Your artwork on my walls I treasure--a little piece of you with me always.  Your happiness now seems like one of life's great success stories: a truly wonderful person got a truly wonderful reward.

I look forward to many more years of friendship.  Though we are separated by miles, we are not separated in thought.  My warmest wishes go with you always.

Love,
Valerie

 

Valerie and Joanna

Valerie

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