Season 2 Episode 1: Frederick Weston: A Legacy of Love

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Frederick Weston: Spiritually, I love everyone. Everyone is my lover.

[Theme music plays]

Ted Kerr: Frederick Weston is somebody who would give a double hug. And when I, when I do that hug with other people, when I do that double hug, that is. That is me sharing an archive. That is me. I'm dragging forward one of the beautiful things about Frederick Weston.

Kia LaBeija: Fred is one of those folks that just has that spirit, you know, that light about him, where anytime I would see Fred, I just felt like I was lighting up. You know, it was like he was a spotlight, you know, and so talented and just so. Beautiful. So warm and such like a pillar and a beacon of the HIV community.

Frederick Weston: I—in a strange kind of way my dreams—my dream—my dreams are always coming true. And I'll usually wind up landing in very good places. And I really feel like I was blessed to have like all of it. I mean GMHC at the right time, AIDS Services at the right time, Village Care at the right time, and Visual AIDS at the right time. It may not be time for my design and my fashion and my art, but I'm in the right place at the right time.

Michelle Herman: Hello, I'm Michelle Herman, Head of Digital Experience at the Archives of American Art

Ben Gillespie: And I'm Ben Gillespie, the Arlene and Robert Kogod Secretarial Scholar for Oral History. Welcome to the second season of Articulated. This podcast receives support from the Alice L. Walton Foundation.

 Oral histories provide unique glimpses into human experience as narrators convey their own stories and their own words, and these glimpses often give us insight into the charms, guiles, and relationships that enrich life. Frederick Weston cultivated a profound legacy of love and warmth, both through the works of his hands and the communities he enlivened.

In this episode, we will spend our time with Fred the artist, the friend, and the legendary hugger.

Michelle Herman: Frederick Weston was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1946, then raised in Detroit where his mother instilled in him a love for aesthetics and clothing. He would go on the graduate from the Fashion Institute of Technology but found the fashion industry resistant to hiring a Black man. In the decades to come, he would build a practice of his own through collage, bricolage, plaster, and above all, personal relationships.

Weston's entry into the art world was enabled by the community he found at Visual AIDS, an organization based in New York City that fights AIDS through education, programming, and by directly supporting artists living with HIV. Here's how he described the importance of that shift in his 2016 oral history with Ted Kerr:

Frederick Weston: I didn't I know I was making art until I went to Visual AIDS to get my friend Franz [Franz Renard Smith –FW] the photographer for his work in. They were like, "Well, who are you?"

Ted Kerr: And when did you—

Frederick Weston: And I'm like, "I'm doing stuff. I put stuff out on the street."

And they said, "We want to see it." And they said, "You're an artist." [Laughs.]

I'm like, "Oh, really? Okay."

And then so it's like, "Oh, cool," and it was right at the time when of the first books, like when one of the first like books of, you know, "what is Visual AIDS and who are its members." And opened up the book and Keith Haring was in there. And all these people were in there, and I'm like, "Oh, shit. I'm an artist." [Laughs.]

Ted Kerr: What year do you think that was?

Frederick Weston: Oh, okay. I got the virus in '96? '95, '96? So this it would be like later than Stella's, maybe '97.

Ted Kerr: Wait, so you—

Frederick Weston: I was doing coat check then. I was doing coat check then.

Ted Kerr: And then—so you hadn't really thought of yourself as an artist until after—

Frederick Weston: I was doing, you know, what I was doing—I was doing whatever I needed to do for like Claude—making stuff and doing stuff and invitations, but there's a point to this. I was even putting stuff out on the street—

Ted Kerr: Uh-huh. [Affirmative.]

Frederick Weston: you know, and that was kind of expression, and then it was—okay, here's a story.

I was working for a store, a really tiny store down near Houston and Broadway in that area. And I was supposed to be the art director. They were giving me a title because they weren't giving me any money. And they said, you know, I'm like, "Well, here's an idea. Let's decorate the store." They did knit wear. "Let's do a blue story, and we'll take all the blue knitwear and we'll put those on the front, out in front, and then put all the other colors and things in the back in the stock so we create kind of like this big serious blue vibration."

And I said, "I'll collect stuff out of the bathroom and the bedroom, just containers, empty containers and stuff, and we'll line them all around the store so it's like a cityscape." When you look at it you just see all these shapes, but then when you realize that it's stuff, but it's all brought out, only get blue because we want to make this blue vibration.

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And he said, "Oh, cool, cool, cool, because I don't have to spend any money."

So I had big bags, big garbage bags full of stuff that I had collected over time, and they're like, "We don't think we want to do that."

I'm like, "Shit!"

I'm sorry. I'm cursing in the Smithsonian. [Laughs.]

I said, "What are you going to do with it?" I'm like, "Well, okay, make art out of it."

Ben Gillespie: "Blue Bathroom Blues" was a breakthrough work for Weston, a moving and mobile installation he mounted in the streets of New York. Integrating collage, assemblage, performance, and poetry, Weston repurposed medical materials, commercial wrappers, and the detritus of everyday life and HIV treatment. In his oral history, he describes how the work grew into the communities where he presented it:

Frederick Weston: so the blue bathroom out on the street happened as a result of me having collected all of this stuff and not having the original place where I intended it to go was no longer available to me. So now I just have to put it out on the street. And I put it out on the street with the same way with the same kind of intention as I would in the store and we'll see what happens.

 So it's all really trash. So in fact I would go for construction sites that had painted the backdrop blue, post no-bills, and paint it all blue, and I would write "Blue Bathroom Blues" on in chalk, and I would just line the stuff up on the street.

Ted Kerr: In front of the blue wall?

Frederick Weston: In front of the blue wall, and I'd take a picture with the Polaroid, click, click, click, so I got a, you know, proved that it was here, and we'll see how long it stays up before they sweep it up because it's really only trash anyway.

Okay, so this was—I don't know what year it was, but it was in June just before Gay Pride. And so I was working uptown, and so when I would come home I'd come past this little—it was a hotel, maybe 27th Street on the Eastside? One of those big condos or something. It was a hotel or a condo or something was going up. So I put it there. And I'm like, "Let's see how long this stays."

So there was one container that every time I walked past it'd seem like the wind would have caught it and it would fall down. So I'd prop it back up. So after I've walked past this couple of days, I'm like, "Well, you know, this one has stayed up—like this is several days now. In fact, Gay Pride is this weekend. I wonder if it's going to make it to Gay Pride?" And I said, "I'm really tired of propping this piece up. You know, if it falls down I'm going to just let it fall."

And then when I went back later on, I realized somebody else had propped it up. I'm like, "Oh, other people know this is a thing. Other people are recognizing that this is a thing, and they're even supporting it by, you know, keeping it clean and neat and propped up."

but that was like, "Okay, I'm making art, and other people are seeing this, and I don't have to be the one to prop it up every time.

[Musical Transition]

Ben Gillespie: Throughout his work, Weston examined discarded markers of permanent conditions, confronting the realities of disease management, poverty, consumerism, and racism in their material and psychological residue. He was also an active member of a support group that dealt with the damage of accumulating too much stuff, here's how he detailed its importance to interviewer Ted Kerr:

Ted Kerr: Can you say more about clutterers anonymous?

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Frederick Weston: Clutterers Anonymous? Clutterers Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience with cluttering and hoarding and trying to not make it be a detriment to their lives, and to come out of that situation and to recognize it is a disease, you know. And that it's physical and emotional and spiritual as well. And we use the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous because we feel it works as well for those who have problems with clutter as it does for alcoholics. And yeah they're an amazing group of incredible people who you'd not expect but most of us share the shame of having too much stuff and other people's opinions about us that we have too much stuff. Or may not be the best homemakers and housekeepers as we might be. And again it's about stuff. I think Americans just have so much stuff. You know and they tell us we're not you know—what will make us better what will make us better— [laughs] —what will make us nicer people is stuff, more stuff. Anyway I think now—in fact my latest "ism" is minimalism. Because I think rich people are moving into this place where they realize that stuff doesn't make you happy. And actually they would like to have less stuff. They would like to have better stuff, but they would like to have less stuff.

Ted Kerr: Uh-huh. [Affirmative.]

Frederick Weston: But I think you have to have had the experience of having too much stuff or having enough stuff that should make you happy to get to the point where you realize that it doesn't make you happy and to divest yourself of stuff and try to figure out what makes you happy is something else beyond the material. But for people who never had stuff I understand why they want stuff. [Laughs.]

Ted Kerr: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]

Frederick Weston: You know we get identities from stuff.

Ted Kerr: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Do you see a connection between the Clutters Anonymous work that you do and your artwork?

Frederick Weston: Yes. In fact I try—some of my artwork directly address issue of stuff. And then the idea of like a collage necessarily is trying to squeeze, you know, a lot of images in a limited amount of space. Or try to squeeze as many ideas in a small amount of space, or taking things from desperate situations and putting them together in a context that wasn't necessarily the people—that people might not necessarily have thought of before. Or even like to the point where I find poses—poses in classic art, and poses in fashion art, and poses in illustration and it's the same pose. So I think all of that—I think a lot of things have meaning. Like I think gestures and things have meaning. Language is the way we use our bodies, not only the way we clothe our bodies, but the way we use our bodies. And that I think—and that's my mission and ministry to have a space where I'm able to talk about these things.

Michelle Herman: Weston's work draws on the significance and lifecycle of stuff, its appearance and circulation, to spur new connections. His attention to refuse, the boxes, wrappers, and remnants of mean survival, yielded insight into the lifelong legacies of the things that make up our day to day lives. In his own life, Weston also cultivated deep connections through an appreciation of warm, fleeting embraces in friendship:

Ted Kerr: Like, spiritual relationships, physical relationships...

Frederick Weston: spiritually, I love everyone. Everyone is my lover, you know. Emotionally, I think I can get caught up, but I've learned I need to create safe spaces for myself, because they're emotional vampires and all they do is suck all your energy. Physically, I'm a hugger. You know me, I hug. I got the fierce hug. I got the fierce hug.

In fact, people hug me and they're like, "Oh, Fred, oh, when I hug you," and then somebody even was—oh, it was embarrassing. They were talking about me hugging. It was a guy talking about me hugging people. "When Fred hugs me," it was embarrassing. It was— [laughs]

—embarrassing. But he was—I know I have the power. I know that's part of my power. There's power in my touch, you know, and when I embrace someone, it's real. It's a spiritual—in fact there was a lady on TV. She said hugs, H-U-G-S, helps us grow spiritually.

That's what hugs are for me. And I make a ritual of it, it's something special. And this, it's more intimate, and it's cleaner than the handshake or a kiss, you know? [Laughs.] It's safer. [Laughs] . And if—and if you're doing it right, it's the most wonderful experience—it's the most wonderful expression of love that the world has, you know.

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And it does it, it crosses sex, it crosses gender, it crosses. It crosses, it crosses. It just crosses. It just crosses. So, yeah, I'm a hugger, and that's kind of—I feel like that's one of my—I don't know, I'm—maybe I'm branding myself. I make a lot of decisions based on the fact that I know that I do this and nobody else does this, this is my thing, you know, my handwriting, my printing. It's my thing. My expression is my thing. I believe I am a happening, and to know me is to love me, you know.

To not know me can be kind of confusing, because there's really everything that's going on in your head, but to try and get some—make, you know—you know, Fred—Fred—Ted, I had the— [laughs] —there's some transference.

Ted Kerr: That's right, some transference [laughs]!

Ben Gillespie: We spoke with Ted Kerr, the interviewer from Weston's oral history and an advocate for those living with HIV/AIDS, who told us about the substance of a hug:

Ted Kerr: Frederick Weston is somebody who would give a double hug, meaning he would put his, let's say his left arm on top of your shoulder, and then wrap around and hug and then release and then put the right arm over your body hug and then release.

And when I, when I do that hug with other people, when I do that double hug, that is. That is me sharing an archive. That is me. I'm dragging forward one of the beautiful things about Frederick Weston. And so I just, I maybe challenged myself and challenge all of us to think of what are the ways in our everyday practices that we're dragging forward.

The bits of --of our lives in archive that will make the world better for other people. For some people that'll be a handshake or maybe, um, a turn of phrase that their grandmother would say. And for me, it's Frederick Weston's double hug.

[Musical transition]

Ben Gillespie: Weston came to appreciate the powers of kindness and charisma through his mother Freda, whose wide-ranging influence and artistic impulse nurtured his creative spirit:

Frederick Weston: my mother was a star. My mother was amazing in so many ways, and I know she had a lot of effect—she only had one—I'd say my mother's only issue, and I mean that literally and figuratively. I mean that in all the senses of the words. But my mother touched a lot of people. My mother learned from my grandmother, too, again, how to put your hands on something and have it be better for her having to putting her hands on it.

My mother had—she was a creative force even if it was just moving the furniture around in the room, you know. She was quite something. So I miss her. I miss that part of her.

Ben Gillespie: We spoke with artist and performer Kia LaBeija about lessons she learned from Weston for coping with and growing from loss:

Kia LaBeija: Fred and Fred, I think maybe it was one of the first folks that I met at visual aids. I'm trying to remember. I can't even remember the first time we met, but, um, Fred is one of those folks that just has that spirit, you know, that light about him, where anytime I would see Fred, I just felt like I was lighting up.

You know, it was like he was a spotlight, you know, and so talented and just so. Beautiful. So warm and such like a pillar and a beacon of the HIV community, especially a Visual AIDS. You know, it was someone that you would see, always see at a visual aids event was always involved, you know, um, just like really like just magnificent and an angel. I remember, um, at the Visual AIDSVanguard awards, maybe 2015 or 2016, um, when Luna was being, um, honored, uh, Luna Ortiz. An amazing, amazing photographer and also just amazing person and also like a beacon of the ballroom community and just the visual aid community and many other communities. Um, but I remember we were talking about something at this table and, uh, he closed his hand, like in a fist and he said to me, you know, when people say to let go,

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if you're holding your hand as a fist and you just open your hand, right. That's not really letting go. So he, he closed his hand as a fist and he opens it. Right. And his Palm is out. His whole hand is spread. And then he turned his hand upside down and he goes, that's how you let go of things. And I don't know, it just really struck me.

And I do it all the time. You know, when I'm having a moment, like I'll, I'll ball up my. And I'll open it, you know, palms out, you know, facing the sky and then you turn your hands down and that's letting go. And it's just things like that that were just like, really special about him.

[Musical transition]

Ben Gillespie: Weston had a knack for finding or founding community wherever he went, from Visual AIDS and the GMHC, formerly known as Gay Men's Health Crisis, to Clutterers Anonymous and his participatory street installations. In his varied networks, he maintained care for individuals in their uniqueness, respecting the multitude of facets that come together in each community member. To learn more about artist activist groups and their responses to the AIDS epidemic, check out season one episode five: "The AIDS Crisis and Queer Activist Art." Interviewer Ted Kerr asked Weston about how he structured his life and care during his 2016 oral history:

Ted Kerr: when I worked at Visual AIDS you told me this thing that I thought—that I think a lot about and you talked about how your day program is your work. Or you think of it as a job.

Frederick Weston: It's my job. It is my job. It is my job in fact in order to get the food I've got to show up you know. And it's—but then likes there's the causes the kind of program they are in order for them to serve me the food, they have to give me a couple of classes. And so we're doing—we're talking about—and the people there really—like—I learned [about] Maslow from Day Treatment Program I learned about Erikson in Day Treatment Program. I mean like I'm doing serious psychology classes.

Ted Kerr: Yeah you're doing a Masters.

Frederick Weston: Right you know. And that's part of our—that's part of our conversation.

 Everybody needs a therapist. Everybody needs to go talk to somebody.

Ted Kerr: Uh-huh. [Affirmative.]

Frederick Weston: That they don't know, they're not connected to in any kind of way and that you can talk about anything.

Ted Kerr: Uh-huh. [Affirmative.]

Frederick Weston: They need a person, yeah.

Ted Kerr: I mean it's interesting the same way that HIV opened up an awareness to this art world HIV also opened up a different way of finding stability or health for you.

Frederick Weston: I—in fact, in a strange kind of way my dreams—my dream—my dreams are always coming true. And I'll usually wind up landing in very good places. And I really feel like I was blessed to have like all of it. I mean GMHC at the right time, AIDS Services at the right time, Village Care at the right time, and Visual AIDS at the right time. Stella's bar at the right time, Tricks bar at the right time, all those clubs at the right time you. It may not be time for my design and my fashion and my art, but I'm in the right place at the right time. And even the places that I think like damn why am I here; this is like this is so beneath me. Like I have all these degrees and things and I know all this stuff. And I'm here with people who are acting crazy and you know just walking around the corner and smoking a reefer— [laughs] —to get right you know. And some—yeah and it's is a job because I realize that's what's keeping me alive, and though the program is not the same as it was before I still need that—I need that meal every day. I need that meal every day. And I need to go get it.

Ted Kerr: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]

Frederick Weston: I don't need it delivered to my door that's not going to make me a better person. And to be able to get up and wash my ass off—

Ted Kerr: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]

Frederick Weston: —put on my outfit, serve the neighborhood, and go get my food at a—serve the neighborhood and come back, you know. And enjoy my life you know.

Ben Gillespie: Those considerations of structure and stability gave way to questions about legacy and how Weston conceptualized his influences in and on the world:

Frederick Weston: That worry is gone. Now, it's just worried about my legacy, and that's why you're here talking to me now. This is—

Ted Kerr: Uh-huh. [Affirmative.]

Frederick Weston: —you know? And all that that's happening for me, too.

Ted Kerr: Uh-huh. [Affirmative.] It really is.

Frederick Weston: All that's happening for me, too. So, it just caused me to keep doing my work—

Ted Kerr: Uh-huh. [Affirmative.]

Frederick Weston: —and going to those places where I'm showing up at those places, even the places that think I'm supposed to be—I'm too good for, I'm not. And those people who are there, who think I think I'm too good for them—I don't, but if that's the way—we have to work our relationship like that, and so, give me—give me—give it to me.

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Ted Kerr: Uh-huh. [Affirmative.]

Frederick Weston: Because you really don't know who I am until you've given an opportunity for me to disclose. You don't know that I had awful situations in my life, just as you do. You don't know anything about me. And everybody walking down the street has a story like that.

Ted Kerr: Uh-huh. [Affirmative.]

Frederick Weston: You know, everybody's gone through something awful. You know, everybody's gone through some kind of dysfunction. Nobody's life is perfect. Everybody has pain. Everybody has fear, you know? It's only a couple of emotions. We have a lot of ways to—I mean, it's only a couple of feelings. We have a lot of ways to describe those emotions. And you know, how we choose to serve that feeling back to the world, but you know, really, it's only love—fear, love, anger, pain.

Ted Kerr: Uh-huh. [Affirmative.]

Frederick Weston: You know?

Ted Kerr: Uh-huh. [Affirmative.]

Frederick Weston: So, I can deal—I can handle it. I just have to figure out sometimes where I am, and how I got here. Particularly that anger thing, because, like, why anger?

[Musical transition]

Michelle Herman: Weston made time to mentor and share space with other artists throughout his work with organizations and beyond. Poet, artist, and activist Pamela Sneed described her first encounter with Weston and the lasting encouragement and camaraderie he offered:

Pamela Sneed: Well, you know, I wrote a piece for ArtForum, which was in remembrance of him and, I mean, I have a lot of fond stories, but, but I guess it was like going over to his place for a studio visit.

And I thought that he was gonna, you know, bestow this wisdom upon me. And, um, because I'm, uh, you know, I'm a newer visual artist and he's like, oh, child, I don't believe in that. You know? And he was like, you know, let's just talk. So, we just talked and it was really funny because, um, he had like, you know, grapes in like, sort of like, like grapes on a plate.

And um like cracker barrel, you know, cheese, like cut up into like squares and like, you know, to those like, you know, uh, cheese and great platter, you know? Yeah. And, uh, as we talked and, and, um, and you know, he pulled, you know, tarot cards and said something and it was something about like needing more music in my life.

And, um, I don't know. I mean, we just talked too long into the afternoon, and I was really impressed he was like making these cakes that were sculptural cakes, you know, um, I don't know, made out of clay or some kind of like some kind of like children's... I don't know how to describe it, but there were these beautiful sculptural cakes and they hadn't been finished yet.

They hadn't been painted, but there was like tinfoil in them and they were sort of like celebratory . The thing about Fred, no matter what he was going through, you know, he was like making cakes.

 You know, he came to everything with like a full heart, like a full selves, you know what I mean? Like, you know, if you heard him speak, I mean, he was laughing, he was crying. He was singing. I mean, he gave you everything he gave you sort of like the spectrum of like human experience and.

You know, there was no pretense there, there was just like this full body Gusto. I don't know that that's like what I hang on to about him.

Ben Gillespie: Weston's gusto permeated the entirety of his life, from his striking collages to his enduring connections. He wasn't afraid to to muster love in response to the harsh and brittle conditions of the world. In the years before his death in 2020 from bladder cancer, he saw new hope for care to mount society's greatest hurdles:

Frederick Weston: We need to change our attitudes about stuff. You know. Race and sex that's the big—that's the big cross. [Laughs.] It's race and sex.

Ted Kerr: Is gender included in that when you say that?

Frederick Weston: Yeah. Sex meaning gender. Sex meaning gender—sex basically meaning gender.

 You know. What does it mean to be a man, what does it mean to be a woman, and what about all those people in between?

 And what does it mean to be Black? What does it mean to be white? And what about all those people in between? Because all of those people are in between? It's how we have to identify ourselves. I had this guy in one of the programs he always says, "I hate labels. [Laughs.] I hate labels." I'm like I don't hate them, you know. I think they serve us to some point. I think they can be detrimental. But it's just like if God made everything good and it takes man to take whatever God made and turn it into something awful and ugly.

Ted Kerr: Uh-huh. [Affirmative.]

Frederick Weston: You know, no matter what it is. But I think we'll get to the point where some of the drugs that we've been criminalizing and sending people away from, we'll be able to use them in the way they're supposed to be used, because I think some of that—some of those drugs are medicine.

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I don't know. I just see—I just see a better world and I think some of it is going to happen through globalization.

 You know we realize we're all connected—I'm connected to that person in wherever.

Ted Kerr: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]

Frederick Weston: You know and it's not just the internet I'm really, truly, connected, spiritually, emotionally, to those other people in the world. I mean gosh.

Michelle Herman: Poet-artist Pamela Sneed described how her social media connection with Weston has changed how she understands his death:

Pamela Sneed: and he was also like brotherly, to me. And I think he had liked something on my Instagram, and he would always write nice things about, you know, my visual art.

And it was just like, even days before he passed, he had written something or was like on my Instagram. And so I was like devastating and pretty shocking to me. Um, and not knowing. And I, I mean, I think like, There's this weird thing that has happened. I think like, since the internet has taken over, like I refuse to accept people's death in the same way.

Before the internet, There was just like a finality. For some reason it feels like the technology keeps people alive. I don't know if it's their Facebook page. I don't know if it's everybody talking about them, like, so no one really ever dies and like Facebook land. And so in their regard, like I, I don't process it. Like, they're always still here with me. I don't have that sense of finality.

Ben Gillespie: Ted Kerr spoke to us about the importance of community and how oral history can alloy communities across time and space, referencing the Archives' Visual Arts and the AIDS Epidemic project for which he was an interviewer:

Ted Kerr: So I grew up in a kind of way that I was like, oh, there's no aids communities for me to, to join. And as an adult, I've learned that I had peers all across Canada in the United States who were so isolated thinking that they were the only ones who cared about HIV and they wished that there was community.

And so I would say, even if you think you're the only one. That cares about something, or you're the only one who isn't being represented that you are not alone. And the more you can be vocal about your questions and about your curiosity and about your needs and the louder you can be with those curiosities and your needs.

The greater, the chances are that you're going to find people who are exploring representation that you need and want, but are also exploring the archives and the futures that you need and want. And I think what gets taught in school obviously is so narrow, what makes it to mainstream media, whatever that will mean in the future is so narrow.

And so we owe it to each other to be. Always kind of dragging forward the treats and tidbits of history that we find that have made us who we are and sharing them as much as possible. And I have no doubt in my mind that that one or all of these oral histories will bring you life. And so maybe out of respect for the narrative, And if you feel any allegiance towards me out of respect for me, and definitely as a sort of, kind of ongoing thank you to the Smithsonian for stewarding such projects, please share the oral history or at least a quote from the oral history, um, with somebody else.

And you know, every year that passes somebody else from this list of 40, uh, passes away, they die. And that is. That both speaks to the power and the need for oral history because when somebody dies that the library of their life closes to a degree. And so let's keep the library open, kids, share the oral histories.

[Musical transition]

Ben Gillespie: Artist and performer Kia LaBeija shared her last encounter with Weston and the solace and joy she finds in revisiting his words:

Kia LaBeija: I think the last time I saw him, we was in New York and I ran into him on the street and I was like, "Fred!" And he's like, "Kia!"

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And we like ran to each other and hug and he was like, "oh, I want to have you and your partner over for dinner, lunch." And we'd like to talked about it. And it was right before I was leaving for Europe for a little bit. And I was like, oh, when I get back, like you have to do something. And, um, we weren't able to make it happen, but I'm just really happy that I got to see him in that moment and hug him and embrace him and tell him that I loved him.

And, um, I miss very much. But I feel his spirit, you know, as I feel my mother's spirit, as I feel, you know, all of those who have made that transition, um, he's he's with us and he's around and his legacy is, you know, beautiful. And his duets book was just absolutely amazing. I loved it and I'm, I treasure it and I'm so grateful to.

Be able to have it in my possession and read it and just hear his voice because I can just hear his voice, you know, I read his words and I just, I feel him.

Michelle Herman: Weston's vital spirit endures in the lives he touched, the works he created, and the loving optimism he radiated. He concluded his 2016 oral history with an affectionate message for that encounter and every encounter to follow:

Frederick Weston: So yeah. I Have a wonderful life. Thank you, Ted,

Ted Kerr: Thank you.

Frederick Weston: and thank you, Smithsonian. I love all you people who are listening to my tape, wherever you are.

[Theme music plays through outro]

Michelle Herman: For show notes, works cited, and additional resources visit aaa.si.edu/articulated.

This podcast is produced by Ben Gillespie and Michelle Herman from the Archives of American Art. It was edited by Hannah Hethmon of BetterLemon Creative Audio.

Our music comes from Sound and Smoke composed by Viet Cuong and performed by the Peabody Wind Ensemble with Harlan Parker conducting.

If you enjoyed this episode, please consider giving it a rating or sharing it with a friend or family member.

The Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution is a nonprofit organization that relies on donations from individuals like you to sustain our ongoing operations and special programs like Articulated. To support our work, please visit our website, aaa.si.edu/support. Thank you.

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