Mornings in Morristown
Maryann P. Hobbie
Art Bio
During my eight months hospitalization, my friends at Seton Hall University had generously gifted me with an iPad. It and I became inseparable. An aide would set it on my lap in the morning, and strap on my hand brace that held the stylus that I learned to poke out letters with.
One Monday night, on ending her faithful weekly visits, my Seton Hall friend said, “Why don’t you just pick up and shoot with that thing?” I thought she was nuts. Right before I got hurt in July of 2013, I was planning my first photography show since before my daughter was born. I ended up in the ICU - so that was a definite no show! How in the world could Linda expect me, a paralyzed C4-C7 tetraplegic, to pick up and maneuver an iPad?
I did.
Many months later, my husband would drop me off for my weekly PTSD therapy appointment with Brenda Forte on Elm Street in Morristown. After a few years I got confident and strong enough to walk around town on my own - the same loop - every week.
And one morning I was intrigued by the light playing in the windows of the La Campagna Ristorante, then was pulled into Elliot’s Florist windows. I picked up my iPad. I would always have to concentrate to make sure my feet were balanced before I could lift up my arms to shoot. As my confidence grew, my walks got longer, up past St. Peters, the incredible lace extravaganza of I Do, I Do, Lauren B’s ever changing windows, and the jewelry shop next store.
When it got cold it was always harder, often I felt like I was pushing heavy weights for limbs, but no matter. I was feeding my soul, like Christopher Beirne, the art therapist extraordinaire at Kessler had taught me. One day I realized...you create art from your heart, not from your hands.
And then one morning it occurred to me, that I now had four seasons of my weekly walks. I had grown...and so had the number of my pictures. “Mornings in Morristown,” was born.
In early spring of 2018, I picked up the phone and called Arts Unbound, a 501(c)3 organization in Orange, NJ. I’d seen ads in our local papers and was intrigued. They said they worked with artists with disabilities. When I finished that first conversation with Celene Ryan, I cried. It had taken me three years to make that call. Celene and Arts Unbound have provided me with the guidance and wisdom to make this show a reality. And fiber artist Ellen Weisbord, the early art teacher of my own wonderful daughter, Ewa Wolowicz, volunteered to work with me and sew the hanging panels - made from the drawers of quilting materials, lying dormant in drawers since loosing my ability to sew. They have been resurrected to a new life.
On one of the darkest nights of my hospital stay, I had reached a new bottom. At Kessler I had been thriving with the encouragement and energy of my rehab family, and now, in a nursing home, I felt desolate and alone. I gave up my dreams of ever walking again, and submitted my will to my Creator who might have other plans for me.
And my heart opened up. I began to fall in love with the staff and the elderly all around me. I began to see with new eyes.
For many of my running years, I’d often seen store lights in dark-before-dawn winter mornings that advertised money amounts in the lottery. “That’s it,” I thought, “if I ever win a lottery I’ll establish a grant giving foundation that could effect public policy on social justice issues.”
I hadn’t won a lottery, but there was so much pain around me that had to be addressed - grieving mothers and family members who had lost their sons to guns in the streets - their mothers, their aunts, their cousins were my caretakers, women who treated me with dignity and respect, tenderness and love. Women who couldn’t break out of the cycle of poverty. Something was so wrong here.
So today you’re witnessing the beginning of that old dream. Proceeds from this “Mornings in Morristown” show will go to the Good Morning Hope Fund, seeding scholarship money for children of healthcare workers, and to explore programming to address the prevention of gun violence.
Thank you for being here. Please drink in the beauty of this town captured in the photographs and remember the men and women of dignity striving for a better place in this world. rev. 10 Aug 2018