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Tom Chaney, Jan. 5, 2008: Horse Cave, KY's artist Joe Downing Joe Downing in Paris With one photo By Tom Chaney Joseph Dudley Downing, Horse Cave native and expatriate artist, died at his home in Mnerbes, France, Saturday, December 29. He had lived and worked in France since 1950, returning only for brief visits which often included shows of his work. In March of 1991 my cousin Andy invited me to come to Paris. In the swirl of my three days there I called Joe Downing to pay my respects and to bring him greetings from Horse Cave albeit via another expatriate then living in exile in Philadelphia. Much to my delight, he invited me to his apartment for an afternoon visit. I was surprised to find his place but a five-block hike from Andy's walk up. My contact with Joe had been limited to a brief "Heighdy" or two at his exhibit in 1980 and a delightful evening at dinner with Joe, his guest, Bill Austin, and a teen age neighbor of mine. The dinner was in the Sheeny Thomas house on Cave Street -- a house Joe said he had always wanted to live in. Bill let him have the use of it for the month of the exhibit. That night Joe had made me feel as though we had been close friends forever. Hence the temerity of my contact with him eleven years later in Paris. He answered the door dressed in the bib overalls which he often wore. After seating me on a couch, he took a chair to my left, broke out a bottle of dry red wine and two hours later both of us were surprised at the passage of time and wine. But we had knocked on every door in Horse Cave -- talking about the mutual friends we had known in our two different young man decades around the cave. This Parisian visit was surrounded by the vivid blues, greens, yellows, reds of a cornucopia of his work. Amidst those colors I saw the familiar shapes and hues of home. So I asked Joe why, since he obviously harked back to his roots in his art, he had stayed in Paris. "Why, Tom," he replied, "I fell in love the first week I was in Paris." I left that visit strangely refreshed and energized, much as I had felt upon my confrontation with the paintings of his exhibit in 1980 in Peoples Tobacco Warehouse #2. When I got word of Joe's death, my thoughts went quickly back to that exhibit. He always praised the following account of the opening which appeared in the Hart County Herald. The nigh 28 years since that day have not dimmed the feeling of exuberance in the streets of Horse Cave and the wonder of a native son bringing his work back home. The following account appeared in this newspaper under the byline of staff writer Ann Matera. Dudley liked the piece and said so. It is a fitting reminder of his return to his hometown more than a quarter century ago.
Tom Chaney can be found telling stories, smoking pipe-weed, and occasionally selling books at: THE BOOKSTORE Box 73 / 111 Water Street Horse Cave, Kentucky 42749 270-786-3084 Email: Tom Chaney bookstore@scrtc.com Visit website: The Bookstore This story was posted on 2008-01-06 03:20:10
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