Letter from the Publisher

letter from the publisher

Many years ago, while still a television producer in New York City, after a rather uncomfortable summer tackling an inferno, otherwise known as the New York subway, I decided to assay a summer in Provincetown. I wasn’t just looking for respite from a few muggy months; I was seeking to satisfy a long and gnawing need to indulge my love of art and art-making. My now defunct high school, while excellent on many fronts, did not offer studio art classes. We did have one elderly nun who taught art history, singing the frequent praises of Florence’s Medici family in a trilling tone not unlike Julia Child excitedly describing a roast Cornish hen. But I was far more interested at that time in seeing and making art than in learning about its greatest patrons.

So, years later, I packed myself up and found a room at a now defunct guest house at the foot of Johnson Street owned by Mrs. Mendes, a fisherman’s widow. It was a magical summer. My window framed a brilliant blue bay and the golden gleaming edge of the Heritage Museum, now the Provincetown Library. I rode my bike in the intoxicating sea breezes and took printmaking classes with a persnickety but brilliant master of the art named Bill Behnken. The class, at the Art Association, had mostly older students who seemed quite impressive to my naïve eye. I would come to discover these were not students at all, but some of the greatest artists in Provincetown (many of whom have since been featured in these pages). One of them was a bearded man with a shock of white hair and an infectious persona. He told me, “Patrizia (my name pronounced for effect in a commanding Italian accent) you have passion and that’s what matters most.” I have lived off of those words for years.

That man was noted painter Salvatore Del Deo. I have since had the great pleasure to get to know him and his equally brilliant and passionate wife– poet and historian Josephine Del Deo. I have come to regard them, with great affection and respect, as among the most influential people to have contributed to the fabric of this town. I am honored that they graciously allowed me to sit with them for an interview, called “Time and the Town,” that is our feature in this year’s edition of the Provincetown Art Guide.

-Patricia Zur