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Memorial to Bea Lyons
Bea Lyons passed away on January 21st after a brief but noble struggle with a particularly invasive form of breast cancer. She was the loving companion of Mitch Lyons. They were married for forty seven years. Their first date was in 1956 when she was 16 years old and Mitch was 18.I met Bea and Mitch for the first time back in 1994 when I was an exhibitor at the Longs Park Art & Craft Festival and so was Mitch. We were set up next to each other. Later on we discovered much to our mutual surprise that we were staying at the same Bed and Breakfast in East Petersburg, Pa. This is where we struck up a friendship that has grown and deepened over the years.
Mitch, as many of you know is an artist/craftsman who began exhibiting at shows in the mid 1960's. He is best known for developing a new method of printmaking which incorporates the use of china clay, colored pigments, and found materials. His clay monotypes are in private and public collections throughout the world. Mitch is also an accomplished potter. His hand built vessels might take a second position to his clay monotypes, but are no less significant.
I did not get to know Bea until much later. My recognition of her intelligence came about gradually. This is due to the fact that Bea was a quiet, diminutive, unassuming person who preferred listening and taking things in rather than shooting from the hip. However, give her a glass of white wine, and she would open up like Night Blooming Jasmine. I discovered that she had keen perceptions not only about the world we inhabit as artists/craftspeople, but about the world in general.
It is impossible to determine where Mitch begins and Bea ends. They were life long mates. His success in no small part was due to her loving response throughout all of the difficult years of trying to make a go of it in the art world. During that time they also raised four children. Bea spanned more than a few generations of cultural influences and did so with grace and equanimity. She had a gift for making sense out of non-sense through the unsteady 1960's; the vapid 1970's, and up until our most recent times in which the world seems to be unraveling in front of us. She had a rare gift for putting things in perspective; to separate out the wheat from the chafe. She was not boxed in by some ideological perspective that constrains reality. She was comfortable with her womanhood without prescribing to a feminist agenda or any agenda in particular. In that sense I was always impressed by the fact that she exhibited a sort of timeless, ageless quality.
The last time I saw Bea was during Mitch's annual Open Studio in the early part of December. She was in physical decline but not in spirit. We had dinner with them. Several of her children and grandchildren were in attendance. One incident in particular encapsulates the shining aspect of her personality. Bea got up from the table and made her way over to the refrigerator. She opened the door and bent over peering inside. Her children perhaps being a bit too solicitous, echoing each other asked her: 'Mom, what is it you want'? Bea, still fixed over the open door, in her typically feisty, enigmatic, but witty style said, "How will I know until I look?"
She was woman for all ages and will be missed by all who knew her and loved her.
Richard Carner
BEATRICE LYONSBeatrice "Bea" Louise Calhoun Lyons
of New London, PA, passed away on January 20, 2009 at home with her devoted family at her side, after a courageous battle with cancer.
Born in Philadelphia, PA, Bea will be remembered as a very loving, compassionate, generous and creative woman to all who knew her. She most cherished the time spent with family and friends and enjoyed weaving, singing, gardening, cooking, modeling, laughing, traveling, reading, teaching and learning. She was a member of the Harmony Weavers Guild; the Brandywine Fiber Guild and previously sung in the choir at the Assumption of the B.V.M. She graduated from Little Flower High School in 1958, married the love of her life in 1962, had 4 children and moved to New London in 1972. Working for many years with the Delaware Institute for Arts in Education, she was both a patron of the arts and an accomplished textile artist.
She is survived by her partner-for-life and dear husband, Mitch; their son David, of Franklinville, NJ, his wife Melanie, their 2 children, Nicholas and Brandon; their daughter Jennifer of Wilmington, DE, her partner, Armin, his 2 children, Noah and Camille; their son Christopher of Christiana, PA, his wife Andrea and daughter Carly; their son Gregory of Willow Street, PA, his life-partner Gracie and their daughter Cassandra; and her beloved brother Richard; her Niece, Michele, nephew Richard, Jr. and their families, all of Philadelphia, PA. Bea is the daughter of the late Evelyn Teasdale and William Calhoun.
A memorial service will be held on Saturday, January 24 from 2-4:30 pm at the FOULK AND GRIECO FUNERAL HOME, 200 Rose Hill Rd, West Grove, PA 19390, ph. 610-869-2685. A gathering will be held at the family residence directly following the service.
Donations in lieu of flowers may be made to the American Cancer Society, 92 Read's Way, Suite 205, New Castle, DE 19720.
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