The Unfinished Life of Addison Stone

When we asked her about the work, Addison said, “I don’t want to think about that money, but it’s consuming me. I keep imagining lines and cords and lights looping from me to the Sadtler grant and back again. So if I don’t win, I guess I’ll just turn off the lights.”

While Addison is known for her portraits, she captured my heart with that installation. What an interesting, quirky way to capture a mood. That’s the moment I recognized that, win or lose, Bill and I needed to do something more by Addison.

I contacted her mother. I said, “Your daughter should be auditing weekend classes at the Rhode Island College of the Arts. I’ve shown a professor friend of mine some of Addison’s work, and he’ll let her attend for free.”

As you might have learned, Maureen Stone has a hard time with decisions. She gave me the whole song-and-dance: “Gracious, we’re only a one-car family, and I’m much too busy to drive Addison! Besides, I don’t want her getting that serious about art! And why would she attend college before she’s in college?”

In the end, it was Jonah Lenox who drove Addison to Saturday morning art classes at RICA. It was over an hour away from his farm to her house to the campus. Then he had to hang out there so he could take her back home. But Jonah Lenox, luckily, was one of the few people taking Addison’s genius seriously.

LUCY LIM: The Lenox had this dooky-green Chevy Impala, and baby, we loved it! He always let me third-wheel it with him and Addy. I’d been scared of him when he was going out with Luanne Dengler. But he was so sweet to me. Soon I forgot that he’d been anything but Addison’s guy. The three of us would jump in his car and have these adventures. “Let’s go to the beach! Let’s go to the Wakefield Mall for Friendly’s Fribbles! Let’s go to the Mystic Aquarium and watch the dolphins!” Didn’t matter what. We’d drive around and sing that old Beastie Boys’ song about how we holla in a Chevy Impala.

I didn’t always come along. But I always felt invited. Those were some of my best afternoons, the three of us lurching down Route 114 in that car, looking for something to do.

MAUREEN STONE: Jonah was a good boy. I’d never have prevented Addison from seeing him. He was a diamond in the rough. After that summer she’d had, goodness, I was happy to see her that way. She was quite secretive whenever Jonah called. She’d giggle and run up to her room with her cell phone. When she was with Jonah, she acted, well, normal, I suppose? Like any teenager.

DUSTIN GERAHY: I was the only other junior taking Advanced Placement art at South Kingstown High School. Me and Addison Frickin’ Stone. She was incredible. An art-room fable, a story to tell my grandchildren.

It’s not like I sucked—I’m at Carnegie Mellon now, majoring in graphic design. But art class with Addison was like being thrown into a baseball game with the pitcher for the Red Sox. I was cut down to size before I had a chance to prove a thing. Addison was a whole other league of talent. The other art students knew it, the Fieldbenders knew it. The art room was Addison’s fiefdom, and her projects, like those Billfold paintings, they were our kingdom’s treasures.

My first love? I’ll never tell! But I remember my first kiss. It was in a barn, on a working farm way out near Cumberland. The kisser was Jonah Lenox, “The Lenox” I liked to call him, like he was a rare, wonderful species of something. He lived on that farm, and sometimes I lived there, too, when I couldn’t deal with the circus clown car of my home life.

Kiss night was black as pitch. We were in rolling around in the hay. With tongue and a hand on the boob—what bee-sting I’ve got. The Lenox had square, warm hands. I opened my eyes in the middle of the kiss. It’s the curse of an artist, right? To want to observe and record while experiencing?

It was too dark to see, and I was grateful for that. It would have been an overly visual experience otherwise. In the dark, I could concentrate on tongues, mmm, synesthesia. Like being deep under the blue-green water at Point Judith beach. Or sleeping under the warm sun with my toes pedaled in the sand. The Lenox was delectable. Sweetest guy I ever met. He loved my art, too. An early true believer. That was a big deal for me.

Billfold #2/Billfold #3 portraits of Bill Fieldbender by Addison Stone.

Excerpt from issue # 79 of ArtRightNow interview with Addison Stone.

ARLENE FIELDBENDER: We did feel like her parents. Perhaps we crossed some boundaries. If we knew she was coming into the art room to work before class, Bill and I’d bring in coffee and breakfast biscuits, and then over breakfast, we’d talk to her about balancing art and schooling. We didn’t want to pressure her about scholarships and art schools and competitions. At the same time, we knew she could win them all. It was so tantalizing for Bill and me, just to think of the bigger world recognizing and celebrating her talent.

When Bill and I had lived in New York, a zillion years ago as students at Hunter College, we found such a supportive community. It was only once we’d launched her that we realized Addison had no network in New York, not the way Bill and I had. I will always wrestle with it. Could we have prevented it? Did we encourage bad decisions in her life, because we believed too hard in the good of her talent?

That squid she ended up signing her life away to, Max Berger, could very likely buy a small country off all the money he’s made from the Addison Stone domain. The selling of a dead young supernova. Despicable. The other day, I saw someone wearing a T-shirt with Addison’s face on it. Max Berger must have licensed that. He’s a revolting opportunist. Bill and I never would have thought this would be lovely Addison’s legacy. When we knew her, we were blinded by her potential. In love with it, I suppose.

DUSTIN GERAHY: You know, as brilliant as Addison was, people also wanted to sabatoge her. “Tall poppy syndrome,” they call it in Australia. Meaning if Addison was the brightest, most beautiful flower standing in the drab field of South Kingstown High School, first we wanted to stare up at her, and then we wanted to cut her down. A lot of kids joked that she didn’t have a real home. That she slept in the art room like a ghoul, sucking on the oil paints for nourishment. I’d joke, too. Addison was beautiful, but she also looked like a girl who’d just woken up from an all-nighter in a broom closet.

EVE LIM: Roy’s drinking was becoming an issue, a small-town scandal. There was a rumor he was having a fling with a local girl, Shona Barrett, whose parents own Shona’s—a sandwich shop over on Greenhill Beach. Lucy would go to Addison’s house and then report that Shona’d been there making eyes at Roy, both of ’em drinking cheap box wine with pop radio blasting, while Charlie was off at sports practice and Maureen was walled up in her bedroom, watching television. No wonder Addison didn’t want to be there.