TUTU, ART, HEALING

by Cynthia Connell Davis

“I really like the way you do the eyes.”

Tutu misunderstands. She only hears “the eyes” and she directs us with a sweeping gesture into the gallery and then points to several paintings. “See those? Jayne Lewis Cowsert paints amazing eyes.”

I’ve taken my son-in-law Jeff, who is studying to earn a master’s degree in art therapy, to Tutu. I want him to meet her and see her gallery of art and healing, Tutu’s Once in a Blue Moon, in Osceola. When we arrived, she was outside completing a painting. “Al fresco,” she says and smiles a welcome. Yes, for her painting is like dining; today it’s in the fresh air.

The misunderstanding – that he is complimenting the way Tutu painted the eyes and her directing our attention to another painter’s work – is exactly the point. She doesn’t notice that she automatically puts her 21 artists* who show their work -- and their healing of themselves through art – ahead of herself.

“A Self-Portrait is a candle of hope.”

The gallery is like an antique shop, full of things. She points at two paintings on the opposite wall. One depicts a round shape with a misty cone beneath – a spaceship lifting off. There is a small red body, prone, hanging in space beneath. “Look at the progress!” She points at another. “A self-portrait!” This one depicts a head. Even with white eyes, the progress is unmistakable. Gracie suffers from mental illness. Tutu says, “I call her amazing Gracie. She was re-labeled and re-medicated.” What she means is: What does that tell you? Any triumph Tutu feels is tempered with relief that Gracie is better.

In her inimitable way she asserts, “A self-portrait is a candle of hope. It conveys the inner message to the outside world. It tells YOU, in stages.” Her brown eyes hold mine steady. In one long look she is both telling me and asking if I get it. Is she reading me in some psychic way? I wonder just how intimately do I really want to be known? But it’s not a penetrating look; there are no demands here. On the contrary, she radiates the opposite of demands. She offers a safe place for artists, anybody, to express themselves through art: paint, fabric, wood, glass, paper and more.

Who is Tutu?

She sent me a link to a video of the reporters on Channel 16 at a Christmas get together before a show, in which Trish Sloma (who bought a painting for Joshua Short for Christmas) talks about Tutu as if everyone knows her. But who is this artist/healer? Part of the answer lies in answers to other questions: How did this unique place come into being? Who is Donna Duncan Hughes? Who is Jeff Kee?

“Tutu” is an honorary title in Hawaiian. It means “matriarch, wise old woman.” Native Hawaiians had no written language. The importers/exporters brought recorded language to Hawaii. Tutu herself was a Hawaiian child who was adopted, along with two other Hawaiian children, by an American military family.

“I have RAD. It means ‘reactive affective disorder.’ You know, the Scarlett O’Hara syndrome. ‘Oh, well, there’s always tomorrow’ is what Scarlett said. I didn’t bond with my mother.” Yet, somehow through her long career in culinary and restaurant work (especially in Tampa, FL), she became Tutu. “Food is the time of getting together. It a repast; it’s communion.”

When her husband Doug died, her son, who had helped to open the restaurant Bone Fish, said, “Come to South Bend, Mom. There’s work for you here and things for you to do.” His mother-in-law Donna Duncan Hughes quickly became Tutu’s best friend.

She met her boyfriend, Jeff Kee. For him she drew a picture of a feather on a real feather. He said, “Why are you in culinary? Why aren’t you doing this? Would you open an art shop?” At that time, she was working at Mr. G’s restaurant. She noticed that part of the building was for rent and called Donna. She talked it over with Jeff. She spoke to Kevin who owns the building. He said, “You will always be family.” And Tutu’s Once In A Blue Moon was born. Jeff backed her in opening the gallery. Donna (“My paper goddess” who does paper art), was behind her from day one, she says.

I don’t need to ask where the name came from; I sense it was the most unusual, unlikely happening. She reiterates what a risk it was for her. She had always worked in culinary. Now she was going to “take a leap of faith.” Yes, starving artists really are a true thing.

She repeats. “Taking this leap of faith is central to what happens at the gallery.”

Once the gallery was open, Tutu had a time of uncertainty. She prayed very, very hard for help. Suddenly into the store came a woman carrying a painting of an angel! “You are my guardian angel!” she exclaimed. She says of this woman, “Dana is Reiki.” Reiki use a technique of healing through which universal energy is transferred. Perhaps in some way, Dana was guided through energy or heard her crying out for help. The angel hangs prominently on the wall behind the counter.

“Why did you do it [take this tremendous risk]?” I wonder.

““Art is my passion. It is my heart. You allow something to consume you. It can be traumatic to draw. There is the fear. . . It had to be done. I literally jumped. I traded a spatula for a paint brush. I had ideas – it was a rabbit hole thing -- but Donna and Jeff helped me put a door there. I wouldn’t be who I am without them. They helped me, enclosed me, filled in the holes of doubt. The first thing you have to have is an easel. That’s what supports your dream. An easel has three legs. They are the two legs in front, and me, behind.”

A Gallery? You Mean a Business?

“Sometimes one of the artists will say, ‘That isn’t selling. I’m going to take it home.’ And I say, ‘Leave it! The buyer hasn’t come yet’.”

Trish Sloma on the video says, “Tutu’s is a kind of artists’ co-operative.”

“Do you want to make money? Or do you want that smile?” Tutu’s work is a pure example of what Joseph Campbell wrote decades ago: “Follow your bliss.”

“What is it worth? A million? Or something affordable to share? Customers take things home. They love them. They show them to others. Who benefits from that? Make it affordable to take home, to cherish it. Vintage? Antique? Labels.”

During the interview she received a call from a man who said, “I want to do this for my family.” He wanted to make an appointment for his wife to come and paint. He asked, “What do I owe you?” “You owe me a hug and a picture. You’re welcome to join us.” These are not formula words spoken routinely. No matter how often Tutu might say them, the welcome – the acceptance, the offer of coming together, of joining together -- is pure, fresh, and genuine each time.

“What I sell here – what we do here – is emotion.”

“What I sell here – what we do here – is emotion.” She utters so many profound truths that I wonder what thread runs through all this. “When you drop something, it either shatters or it bounces, and you can pick it up.” She points to another painting by one of her painters whose mental state is extremely fragile. “She shatters. You have to be here for them.”

“I go home from here with kindness in my heart,” she says.

Before we say good-by, she catches me off guard. “What is your favorite color?” She adds, “People transform when they come in here.” A framed window propped against other items on the floor is covered with colorful dabs of paint. She asks me to put a dab of paint on my fingertip and touch the window. There is hardly room for another dab. “When I come in, each morning, I look at the window and I bless each person who has come here.”

“When you leave me, what is in your heart?”

Visit Tutu’s Once In A Blue Moon at 714 Lincolnway East, Osceola, IN

Once in a Blue Moon Tutu Emmerich

TUTU, ART, HEALING

She repeats. “Taking this leap of faith is central to what happens at the gallery.”

“What I sell here – what we do here – is emotion.”

“I go home from here with kindness in my heart,” she says.

Visit Tutu’s Once In A Blue Moon at 714 Lincolnway East, Osceola, IN