A Dialogue Across Time and Absence

In this moving episode, Aidan Ryan—writer, publisher, and filmmaker discusses his deeply personal book, I Am Here - You Are Not - I Love You. The book unearths the extraordinary yet overlooked lives of Cindy Suffoletto and Andy Topolski, two groundbreaking artists who came out of Buffalo’s raw, experimental 1970s art scene and made their mark in the intense 1980s–90s New York art world.

As Aidan retraces their artistic journey, he explores the realities of ambition, sacrifice, and reinvention. Why did Cindy, a fiercely talented artist, step away from her own work for so long? Why did Andy, a visionary artist, not receive the recognition he deserved? How does memory transform loss into rediscovery? And what role does place play in shaping who we are and how we are remembered?

With a writer’s sharp insight and a nephew’s deep love, Aidan brings their story back to life—offering a stirring meditation on art, legacy, and the unseen forces that shape creative lives.

Don’t miss this powerful conversation about art, history, the influence of place, and the enduring ties that bind us beyond time.

(( A special thank you to Mick Cochrane, Canisius University Professor  for introducing me to Aidan Ryan—his thoughtful connection made this conversation possible, and I’m truly grateful.))

Today's episode is brought to you by the Joan of Arc Scroll Medal, a beautiful brass alloy medal, designed by award-winning artist, Pat Benincasa. This uniquely shaped medal is ideal for holiday or as a special occasion gift!    Visit www.patbenincasa-art.com
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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Aidan Ryan
• 10:45 Growing Up in a Creative Family
• 26:29 The Influence of Buffalo on Art and Identity
• 40:59 The Journey Behind Writing the Book
• 51:14 Discovering Lost Legacies and Truths
• 1:06:19 The Impact of Family and Memory on Art

Transcript

Pat:

Fill To Capacity where heart grit and irreverent humor collide. A podcast for people too stubborn to quit and too creative not to make a difference.

Pat:

Hi, I'm Pat Benincasa and welcome to Fill To Capacity, Episode #97, "A Dialogue Across Time & Absence." I'm excited to welcome my guest, Aidan Ryan, a writer, publisher, film maker, and Literary Curator in Residence at Art Park. Oh, for those of you who may not know, Art Park is a 150 acre cultural hub in Lewiston, New York, where outdoor performances, creative residencies, and dynamic visual art exhibitions happen against the stunning backdrop of Niagara River Gorge.

Pat:

Now, Aidan is from Buffalo, New York grew up in a tight-knit family. And listeners, it's not every day you hear about a kid who grows up with a loving, playful aunt and uncle who were major players in the 1980s, nineties New York and international art scene, his aunt Cindy Suffoletto and Uncle Andy Topolski forged a powerful legacy that began in Buffalo's raw experimental 1970's art scene before they ventured to New York City.

Pat:

Now, in his upcoming book, "I am Here You Are Not I Love you," Aidan retraces their journey, showing how they overcame obstacles, reinvented themselves, leaving a lasting impact on their personal lives and the art world. But even as their influence grew- time, well, time had its own plans, both passed away unexpectedly, Andy, in 2008 at the age of 56, and Cindy in 2012 at the age of 50.

Pat:

Now, Aidan was kind enough to send me his book before its release, and I have to say it caught me completely by surprise as an artist who came of age in that era, bouncing between Minneapolis studio and gallery scene and trips to New York for new shows. I have to tell you, reading, it felt like time traveling into that unforgettable world. So with all that welcome, Aidan. So nice to have you here.

Aidan:

Thanks so much, Pat. That was a wonderful introduction. Yeah, I'm so, so excited for this conversation.

Pat:

I wanna start at the beginning. Aidan, who are you? What do your parents do? Do you have siblings? What's your story?

Aidan:

Yeah, gosh. Well, uh, you said I'm from Buffalo. I've lived in Buffalo most of my life. There have just been a couple stints away, but the city does have a, a way of pulling you back in. I grew up in the north part of the city. Both of my parents are educators. My dad works at the University of Buffalo and did for most of my life. And my mom, um, is an administrator in, uh, special needs school. And, uh, my sister's an educator as well. Actually, Talia is an artist and an art teacher at a middle school locally.

Aidan:

And where did you go to college?

Aidan:

So I did my undergrad here in Buffalo at Canisius, and then I did a master's degree in US Literature in the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

Pat:

So your book, "I am here You Are Not I Love You," is about your aunt Cindy Suffoletto and your uncle Andy Topolski. Now Cindy is your mom's sister, and with a name like Suffoletto, look, Aidan, I'm a first generation Italian American. Okay. With a name like Suffoletto, I have questions. Tell us about your mom's family. What part of Italy are they from, and who in that line immigrated to the US and why Buffalo?

Aidan:

They're great questions and I, I wish I knew a little bit more. I've done more genealogical research on my dad's side and, uh, and actually largely because my dad's sister, Shelly Bewley has done most of that work, the foundational work. I was actually able to go back to Ireland and find ...where .. (garbled text)

Pat:

Excuse me. Is that your dad?

Aidan:

That's my, my dad's side, yeah.

Pat:

Thank you.

Aidan:

So that was wonderful. I haven't done that kind of work yet on my mom's side, the Italian side, but I, I hope to in the, the coming years. So my mom's last name is Suffoletto, and her mother's maiden name was Donaruma, the Suffolettos, Donarumas and Mannellas, that's the next in the matrilineal line all came from, but generally the middle of Italy, I believe the Suffolettos are from Abruzia and the Donaruma are from a little town called Episcopio, which is near Naples.

Pat:

I gotta ask, growing up in a Irish Italian family, what was that like?

Aidan:

It was, it was great. I think actually it's, it's a relatively common mix in Buffalo, just because of the patterns of immigration into this city. A lot of people I know are both Irish and Italian, but it was, it was wonderful, great food, great traditions, a lot of fun and, and really just strong family ties on both sides.

Pat:

You are a writer, publisher, filmmaker, and curator. What is your main form of expression?

Aidan:

Oh, definitely writing. Yeah. I, I feel like I wanted to be a writer, whatever that meant, at a pretty young age, I think. I mean, I was a reader all my life and, and that was a big part of like, who I was, you know, growing up I thought how I thought of myself, but the writing thing really turned on around fifth or sixth grade, and I realized it was just fun. You know, I was writing like poems or, you know, like, sort of like insult dis tracks or whatever, making fun of friends of mine. And then, you know, from there, stories and things like that. And, uh, really ever since then, it's just been a part of who I am. Film making was a much more recent experiment.

Pat:

Did Cindy or Andy influence your choice to be a writer?

Aidan:

I think in subtle ways. They, they knew that this was something I was interested in. And Cindy in particular, because the last four years of her life, I was really dialing into that, you know, this is, this would be late high school and early college for me. Um, and it was something she and I talked about, you know, and then she was certainly encouraging of my interests in that way. I think their influence on me though was somewhat less direct. I was interested in what they were interested in, and that pushed me toward writing about different things. Reading about different things sort of informed the backdrop more so than, Hey, you should be a writer. Right.

Pat:

Yeah. Now, before we go any further, we're gonna be talking about the art world. And for those listeners not familiar with the art world, what does it look like and how does it shape the lives of those who live and work in it?

Aidan:

That's a huge question.

Aidan:

And I feel like you could teach me quite a bit here. Look, this book, I hope, resonates with people broadly because Cindy and Andy represent a kind of experience of a life in the arts that is not the most glamorous one. It's not the one that is most often in documentaries and books and so forth. We're familiar with the concept of like a struggling artist, but I don't think that this, you know, an artist who never quite breaks through is the, you know, into canonization Yeah. Is the one that we typically memorialize in books and documentaries like this. I think a life in the arts can be incredibly enriching, especially in a time when I think we're, we're living through a kind of crisis of meaning, you know, as a species right now. And having some kind of artistic practice in your life can be a bulwark against that.

Aidan:

But it also requires often big sacrifices, especially if you have your mindset on some kind of idea of commercial success. Whether that means that you want only to make money from your art, not to have a nine to five job that you have to clock into, or it means you want some kind of recognition. And, you know, that's not necessarily a bad thing. I don't think any of us would put anything into the world if we didn't want that recognition. But if, if those are the markers, you know, if those are the objectives, then they're gonna be huge sacrifices, whether that be financially or in terms of relationships or otherwise.

Pat:

Yeah. And I can say growing up, in the seventies, getting an MFA and MA studying art, the standard in the seventies, like studying to be an artist was, if you weren't in New York, you weren't anywhere. If you didn't achieve that kind of megawattage, uh, notoriety, nothing mattered. And for me personally, that was something to adjust to and figure out that as an artist, I can write my own scenario. But it took a few years to figure that out, that between zero and 90, there were a lot of speeds.

Pat:

So I do think that what you just explained is really helpful, especially to people who are not in the art world, to get a sense, like, okay, there are always trade-offs for, for your work. What you're willing to give up. So let's go back to your book. What made you write this book? Did you have like an aha moment, like, oh my God, I've, I've gotta tell their story, I've gotta write this.

Aidan:

Yeah. There were really several steps along the way, and I think the first one was when Cindy died and my family asked me to give her eulogy. So I write about that in the book. I was coming up on the end of my freshman year in college studying creative writing. And I, I remember sitting down to write that and just recognizing that it was a different task than any kind of writing I'd done before. And I think that it was because it actually mattered to other people besides me, you know, as opposed to my little poems and stories and whatever. This was something that was gonna have an effect on people. It was gonna help people through a grieving process. And I recognized the importance of that. But then I also had this really uncanny and uncomfortable feeling after I had delivered the eulogy with everybody coming up and saying, whoa, what a, what a good job you did.

Aidan:

And I felt very kind of lonely in that moment, because with all the praise that was heaped on me for this, this act, I just felt more and more that I was missing Cindy, and in fact, that I had not done justice to her life and, and everything. So this, there was this increasing sense of distance. So it was a very strange feeling to grapple with. But then I sat on that for a while and, you know, did other things focused on other projects. And in the early pandemic, this would've been about July of 2020, my now wife and I were getting away for a weekend in a barn we'd rented out by the Finger Lakes.

Pat:

The Finger Lakes are a group of 12 long narrow lakes stretching north to south in upstate New York, just south of Lake Ontario,

Aidan:

Both thinking about what projects to take on, like so many people, you know, in that time. And I thought that I would write a short article or essay about Hallwalls, which was this gallery and performance collective started in Buffalo in late 1974. Really took off in 75. The most notable founders were, um, Cindy Sherman and Robert Longo, now enormous names in art. But Hallwalls was representative of really extraordinary time in Buffalo, where, you know, even though anybody who was anybody was probably in New York, many of them were spending a lot of time in Buffalo, or it emerged from Buffalo or passing through Buffalo. And this is across all artistic disciplines, music composition, new media, visual art, writing. So I thought, oh, this is interesting. I could probably write an, an essay about this, about what was going on in Buffalo in 1975. And my aunt and uncle who were right there at that, the moment of the spark and then left, could be kind of representative of that period. And then within probably two weeks, I realized this, this is not an article. This is way bigger. It's gonna need to be a book.

Pat:

So when you decided that it's one thing to say, Hey, I'm gonna write an article, but when you come to the realization, I need to write a book, that's huge, that opens the door to, how did you go about it? How did you even know what to do? Did you have to track down people to interview? How long did it take?

Aidan:

Uh, yeah, it took quite a while. And it was unlike any other kind of writing project I, I'd done before. When I was in undergrad, I thought I wanted to be a novelist. I really had only written fiction. But then I did get into journalism, and so I had, I was able to interview people. I knew how to work through public records databases, and, and, you know, so I, I acquired some of those skills. But I think of, uh, the, the great French writer, Annie Ernaux, Nobel Prize speech, where she said, "I write to avenge my people." Which is such an interesting concept. I don't quite mean the same thing she meant, of course, I don't think I could, coming from such different experiences. But as I dug into Cindy and Andy's story, I got a little bit of a chip on my shoulder on their behalf.

Aidan:

It really just started to bother me that Andy didn't even have a Wikipedia page. I mean, he was an enormous figure. And the great, uh, art gallery administrator, curator, writer, and artist, Tony Bannon, who was around at that time, told me, oh, well, Andy was the leading light of that whole group. He was the catalyst for the whole thing. And I, I said, well, hang, hang on a second, Tony. What do you mean by that? He was like, oh, well, you know, Longo and Sherman, they all knew Andy was the smartest one of all of them, and he was the one with all the ideas. And I thought, well, what the heck? Why wasn't he in any of the major shows of that generation? Why isn't he in the history books? That really bothered me. And then on Cindy's side, when I discovered or really realized that she had moved to New York at like 22, 23 years old, left her family, decided I'm, I'm gonna do this thing and, and be a working artist, and then just suddenly stopped a few years in. That also struck me as a kind of injustice. And so I thought, I just need to correct the record here.

Pat:

That really came through in the book. I mean, anybody reading that book really felt that, I don't think it's a chip on the shoulder, but when we discover things about people, we love our families, when they've passed, we get a glimpse into their life and the recognition that they did not receive it, it cries out to be addressed. I see it more that way than a chip. So, Aidan, how did you use your personal connection as their nephew and godson to write their story and at the same time reveal new truths about their legacies? How did you balance that?

Aidan:

Yeah. Well, I, I took a bit of a risk. I hope it paid off. I think that injecting myself into the story at times felt a little bit like I was intruding, you know what I mean? Because I set out initially to write their story. But I found there were so many gaps that I had to fill in sometimes with speculation that I just sort of entered into the story. But then also I found that some of the things that were most compelling to me about their lives had to do with my own experiences that paralleled theirs in some way. And then also, you know, I could write about them as artists, and that might be interesting to some people, but to write about them as people, really, there's no better perspective than my own as, as you know, their nephew and <inaudible> to, to write the story.

Aidan:

Somebody else who knew them could also write a memoir in this way. But, you know, like the relationship between Buffalo and New York City, and, and you know, this, you know yourself, this sense that it's happening in New York, and you have to be there to make, it is just as true in the writing world in the 2010s when I was coming up as it was in the visual art world in the 1970s. And I also felt this, this tug. Am I going there? Am I not? Am I gonna do a undergrad there? Am I gonna do an MFA there? Am I gonna go live there? You know, even up until like last year. And so I related to that part of the story, and then some of the sort of early misses in my writing career, I, I was able to relate to particularly Andy's discontent at losing out on certain opportunities. So I just decided to weave those in.

Pat:

So after writing the book and uncovering their untold story, did your view of Cindy and Andy shift in ways that you hadn't expected?

Aidan:

Oh, I mean, enormously. Yeah. You know, in Cindy's case, I always took for granted that she was an artist. And I was, I think, in a minority there, because I, most people I talked to who knew her in her life, didn't know her in the brief periods when she was a practicing and exhibiting artist, they just knew her as an artistic person. But because we had her artwork in my parents' house and in my grandmother's house, I just knew that she was an artist. But I never thought about what that meant to her, or what she wanted it to look and feel like. Yeah. And the enormous disparity between Andy's numerous solo shows internationally, the catalogs he was in, the books he was in, and again, he wasn't even in enough, commensurate with, with his actual contributions.

Aidan:

But the complete and abrupt break in Cindy's artistic practice that I discovered around 1993 or four would've been really just shocked me and saddened me deeply. But then to see her return to an active studio practice in basically just the last maybe four or five years of her life, was really, really inspiring. And, and it's odd because I knew about the early art, and I knew about the Late Art because I went to her house in Callicoon, after she passed, I helped clean it out. So I saw the artworks. I didn't realize there was a break in between, and that was really impressive that she could go 15 years without a studio, but still be thinking about art and be ready to absolutely explode with a huge series of great works at the end. That's just so impressive.

Pat:

I was deeply moved by that. And when you talk about her stopping making art and then resuming, this also raises a bigger, historically prevalent question. Have things for women artists shifted, juggling their creative expression and output with other roles? Or do those challenges persist?

Aidan:

Well, I'm probably not the person to answer that question definitively, but I'm gonna guess that there persist just to some degree. I mean, in the book, I briefly compare Cindy and Andy's experience as a, as a partnership, a couple who both are artists to that of a generation or a generation a half before them- the Abstract Expressionists or the second generation of the New York School. In that situation, you had Elaine de Kooning and Helen Frankenthaler, she's a little younger, Lee Krasner, who are working artists before they meet their husbands.

Pat:

Elaine de Kooning was married to Willem de Kooning. Helen Frankenthaler married to Robert Motherwell, and Lee Krasner was married to Jackson Pollock. Each of these women carved out their own powerful artistic legacies shaping the course of 20th Century Art.

Aidan:

And then they get married, or they, you know, get connected or whatever, partner up, and their husbands absolutely eclipse them in the views of the critics and the gallerists and, and the art world. And they're only able to emerge much later. In Lee Krasner's case, it had to be Jackson Pollock's death. And then, you know, she had extra time to reemerge on her own terms. I mentioned Helen Frankenthaler. She, she also had a long run, longer runway in some ways as a, you know, working artist on her own before that sort of picture got muddied when she was married. And Cindy had a very similar experience to these women who are a full generation older than her. So, at least within that time period, I don't think terribly much changed.

Pat:

Yeah. And I think even earlier, uh, Sonia Delauney, uh, Gabriel Munter. To be candid with you, I taught at the College of Visual Arts here in St. Paul for seven years. And in teaching, as you know, in art classes, you have discussions. And the discussion would come up, and I would often respectfully caution, usually female students that get your art practice going, get your footing. But if you live or marry a male artist, you have to look at history and see what the consequences could be. And you need to know that going into it, if that's what you want to have happen. I think this overshadowing, you know, when people think of Lee Krasner for many years, it was "the wife" of Jackson Pollock. She's a hell of an artist. And so I think you're correct in saying that we can see the patterns. Have they changed today? That's a question.

Aidan:

Yeah. Well, you know, one, one thing I'm curious for your perspective on, I really struggled as I was dealing with this issue in the book, to acknowledge the historical patterns and acknowledge how this played out Andy and Cindy's lives, but also pay attention to Cindy's agency in this. In that she wasn't forced into that role necessarily. And nor did Andy like intentionally sideline her. She made a series of choices. Now, she may have been socially conditioned into making those choices and environmentally conditioned into making those choices, but she took real pride in managing Andy's businesses and, the financial aspect of his career and the registrar side of things. She took pride in being a confidant and consultant in the studio, even though that wasn't contributing to her own work. So I don't know if I balanced that well enough, but I'm curious if, if you've also thought about that with respect to your students or, you know, other examples.

Pat:

First of all, as I was reading your book, it really hit me hard. That's why I say that the book really ambushed me, because it brought up the struggles of those years and the way you handled Cindy falling into supporting the family. And she was brilliant in terms of finances as well as being creative. You're right, the way you handle, she made choices. She made choices. But, you know, Aidan, that's like a minefield, I think. I'm gonna speak as a woman in that field at that time, the cultural pressure of a woman to help her husband, I mean, those are really prevalent. They're really prevalent. And so she chose to do that. She did it very well. And as you talk about her own agency, I loved the fact that once Andy had passed, which was devastating, she made her way back to her art.

Pat:

Art is inside of us. , If we're encoded with that, that expression has to get out some way somehow. And the fact that she returned to that place- you know, art is our home, our dwelling, that's where we reside. And so for her to come back to it, and I saw those artworks were magnificent. It wasn't just coming back. It was like full throttle. Full throttle with no F's to give! Just who she was. And there was such an organic, beautiful quality. Well, I'm, I'm going on and on, but I think you handled the true... A good journalist lets the person speak, and you let their story speak for themselves. You butted out of it. You let the fact of her choices speak for themselves. But what happened when she came back to it? Oh my God, it just brought tears to my eyes, like, yes, of course. So wonderful.

Pat:

So can you tell us for a moment, what kind of guy was Andy? Is there a favorite memory you have about, about him as you were growing up?

Aidan:

Yeah, it's a, it's a quiet one, but my favorite memory with Andy was sitting on the back porch that he built on their, at their house in Callicoon, which was little hamlet, about two and a half hours outside of New York, just shooting BB guns at beer cans. He was somebody, and I don't know how old I would've been. I mean, this is maybe I was maybe 10 or 11, and then up, up up to 14, 15 maybe. And he was somebody that you could just kind of be quiet with. I kind of feel somewhat robbed that I didn't have a relationship with him when I was maybe more of an, uh, of an interesting conversational partner.

Aidan:

I don't know, you know, how much she's gonna get out of a 12-year-old, but we, we could at least just sit and be quiet together and shoot these BB guns off the back porch, or, you know, when I was much younger than that, play with the, the wooden like castle block set that was at my grandparents' house. I remember, uh, he was so fascinated by technologies, but even really simple technologies. And because when I was a kid, he didn't have young kids in the home. The new innovations that were coming out in kids' toys would just delight him. So I remember when somebody bought me this little handheld device of a 20 questions game. It must have had some like rudimentary AI or something. This is, this is, you know, late nineties maybe, or very early two thousands. But, uh, it would, it would play the familiar game, 20 questions and opening with the, is this a animal, mineral, vegetable, whatever.

Aidan:

And, um, somebody got this for me for Christmas. He was there, he couldn't put it down for the rest of the night. He was just blown away at this technology. And at the time, I just thought, oh, you know, that's funny. That's Uncle Andy. He's obsessive like that. But now I connect it to the way he related to any new thing that he incorporated into our, his artistic practice. Yeah. This new way of making paper, this new way of, uh, sandblasting glass. He would go all in for 48 hours and then it would be in his art. So I don't know that my 20 questions game ever made it into his artwork, but that was his, his quality of attention.

Pat:

Oh, that's a delightful memory. Now, in reading your book, Buffalo, New York is more than a backdrop. It is a living character. So I have to ask you, in what ways has the spirit or history of Buffalo forged your sense of identity and belonging?

Aidan:

Oh, um, I have a tortured relationship with Buffalo, as I believe did Andy and Cindy. And, and maybe that's a common Rust Belt experience. So I actually have an aunt and uncle and cousins in Minneapolis. Uh, so I, I was out that way quite a lot growing up. And I, I feel like the Great Lakes and the Rust Belt in general have a, have a sort of, you know, united cultural, they're a cultural zone, right? Buffalo is an incredibly rich place visually and culturally to grow up, because we have absolutely amazing examples of architecture from all these different eras. It's not like, oh, Buffalo's a great, like, mid-century modern city. We've got tons of different examples and just, there are moments when I'm downtown and I, I look up and see like seven different, like, excellent examples of architectural styles all within the same frame of view.

Aidan:

That's the thing about Buffalo, the extraordinary weather off the lake. I mean, there's a, there's a chapter in Moby Dick where Melville writes about the, the Great Lakes as equal, if not greater than any, any ocean. And he talks about Buffalo and Cleveland, and the drama of the weather here is extraordinary. And then there's also this inherent sense of possibility here, because everybody is just like, two phone calls away. It's so small and rent is cheap, and there's old unused industrial space that's, uh, available that you, if you're a creative person, if it, whether that's, you know, making visual art or, or just throwing a party or whatever, you can probably do it for very little money. On the flip side of things, you know, Andy and Cindy discovered that there's a, a limit in real economic opportunity if you wanna make a living doing creative things.

Aidan:

And there's also, uh, but Buffalo also has a relationship with mediocrity that I find really, really disappointing, and troubling. I mean, we, we elect politicians who are just almost like comically inept, you know, keystone cops level. Ineptitude can't balance a budget, can't, can't fill the potholes. We do, I think we're, we're very quick to lionize, you know, artists and cultural figures who maybe don't necessarily deserve it. Yeah. Just because they stuck around. There is this constant brain drain where, you know, the top 25 most, you know, percent of the most talented people in every field tend to leave. Yeah. Which, which just lowers the, you know, kind of the overall performance. But I love it. I can't help but love it here.

Pat:

Boy, you hit a nerve on that one about the Rust Belt cities. I'm from Pontiac, Detroit area growing up. And so after grad school, I left Detroit to come to Minneapolis. Just growing up around the Big Three Automakers and all the industry, I thought once I moved to Minneapolis, I'm done. Detroit is behind me. I'm gonna have a new beginning. But there's something about those cities that are etched in us. And it wasn't until I started doing my Industrial America Painting Series that I realized I can run anywhere, but I cannot leave that. I cannot leave that. There was something so poignant about those industrial sites for me that someone once called them "Rust Belt cathedrals." And, there's something about that.

Pat:

And so I guess it brings me to the meditation or the question, why does place matter in understanding our past?

Aidan:

Oh, I think I may be investigating this question for the rest of my life. I feel like so much of my writing, you know, comes, comes down to this. You know, I try to talk a little bit in the book about this exact question, because I think in a very literal sense, place shapes us. The, the way that the streets are laid out in Buffalo shapes the experience of generations growing up here. I talk about the, the radial form of the streets and the way that that guided immigration and migration in Buffalo, and where people ended up, and where Cindy and Andy ended up. Right. And I, I do think things like the, the, the drama of the weather live in us forever. Yep. You know, I mean, I talk about the Irish side of my family. Certainly when, when I visited Ireland, uh, in 2014, there were people who were marked, oh, you know, what a beautiful summer this is. This was, this is almost as good as the last beautiful summer we had in 1996. Weather lives in us, the weather in the place where we came from. Right. It, it shapes our character, the way we express ourselves.

Pat:

Oh, yeah. So how did watching your aunt and uncle transform their lives from the close knit world of Buffalo to New York's intense art scene change your view on reinvention?

Aidan:

You know, in, in some ways it underscored that you really do need to hang together with your people. You just can't, it's very hard to go reinvent yourself alone, especially in a place like New York. I was really struck by the way that tightly found networks of friends work to help each other. The way Andy tipped off Peter Muscato about who, who was a friend and who had taken slide images of his artwork before, tipped him off about his space, opening up in his building, how they were helping each other find their next place. How Charlotta Kotik who knew Andy and Buffalo plugged him into a show in the Brooklyn Museum. Hal Buck, the former director of the Albright Knox, connected him with his first gallerist, Eric Siegeltuck. These people, you know, you, you just, in a, especially in a city like New York, they probably in any large cosmopolitan city, you need your people and you need to help each other.

Pat:

Yeah. So, Aidan, when is the book coming out?

Aidan:

May 16th.

Pat:

Okay. And where will people be able to find it?

Aidan:

Well, you can pre-order it right now on the publisher's website, University of Iowa Press. And I'm hoping that it will be in, in bookstores around the country. I don't know exactly where yet, but probably the best place to start is, is the publisher's website. Or the wonderful, bookshop.org, I love because they send their money back to independent bookstores. A great alternative to Amazon

Pat:

Also, I'll put the link beside your own website. I'll put the link to, uh, university of Iowa, uh, so folks can track down the book. Aidan, can you share how memory turns moments of loss into paths of rediscovery really reshaping who we are?

Aidan:

This is probably a central question in the book, because, you know, I, going back to that feeling of loss and distance I experienced after giving Cindy these eulogy, sometimes when we repeat memories in our mind, in the theater of our minds, we can kind of wear them down. They can become thread bear. We can have this experience of people being more and more distant. And the creative act of writing the book, I actually did, I think, bring Andy and Cindy closer in some ways. In some ways, I felt the distance because I was discovering things I didn't know about them in life and that I couldn't ask them about. I mean, that came up almost at every turn. You know, every new thing I discovered should have been a conversation. I would've loved to know what they actually thought about this. Yeah. But at the same time, being forced to use all the techniques of writing I had at my disposal to recreate them in the space of the text felt like a kind of dialogue. And that, that, I think almost like creating new memories, you know? Yeah.

Pat:

You know, as I I read your book, I, I couldn't help but think of that lovely Rumi quote, "Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with their heart and soul, there is no such thing as separation.

Aidan:

Yeah.

Pat:

And to me, that was the spirit of your book. It, it really touched me deeply. And I wanna thank you for coming on Fill To Capacity today and, and sharing all this wonderful information and your memories. Thank you so much.

Aidan:

Yeah. Thank you for having me. It was a real honor and a pleasure.

Aidan:

And so listeners, if you enjoyed today's podcast, please tell your friends and hit subscribe. Thank you. Bye.