Denise Mary Anderson
April 6, 1953 - August 28, 2023
Obituary
Denise Mary Anderson passed peacefully in her sleep on August 28, 2023 at age 70. Denise was also known as Den, Denny, Dee, and Aunt D, by the many who loved and deeply miss her, including a large family with two generations of nieces and nephews and a vast circle of artist friends to whom she was an inspiration and spark of light.
We remember Denise as tiny, fierce, and buoyant with a heart animated by bursts of deep laughter and a curtsy.
Her seven decades on this earth amounted to an epic novel that reads like an exotically choreographed stage production with numerous intermissions and many “unpublished chapters” yet to be unearthed.
While there is a certain solace knowing that her last act was deep peaceful sleep, it is a rough reality to let go of Denise’s being, adorned in black, red and enormous colorful beads, showing up always with an overflowing Mercado bag in hand and effervescent heart announcing her arrival.
Denise began as a world traveler and remained so her entire life. When Denise was conceived, her parents, Carl Lawrence Anderson (Larry) and Mary Denise McCaffray (Mimi), were in England, where Larry was on a journalism assignment. They came home to Seattle Washington before Denise’s birth on April 6, 1953. Mimi passed when Denise was 4 years old, her sister Lily was 2, and her brother Carl just 3 months. Larry then married Margaret (Margy) Shaw and went on to have two more children, Gordon and Meg, creating a family of seven. When Denise was 27 and Gordon was 18, he died in a car accident. Two years later her second mom, Margy passed.
Even with so much loss, Denise never stopped adventuring and leading with her heart. She lived in a manner beautifully reflected by the oversized, ever-evolving collection of art that you might have found in her studio—a collage of creative adventures that together equaled Denise’s life.
Denise developed a curiosity about art at an early age. Her childhood included many hours in her room experimenting with images, colors, and shapes. As a teenager, the sound of albums spinning on the turntable chorused through her closed bedroom door where she immersed herself in creation, her walls tacked with clipped images alongside her sketches and paintings. Over the years, much of Denise’s artwork was framed and displayed throughout the family home.
As for Denise’s formal study of art, that began in high school with a schedule heavy with art classes and many stints serving as an assistant to the art teachers.
Denise’s post-secondary studies in art included the University of Washington, followed by Instituto Allende at San Miguel de Allende in Mexico and Den Hague in the Netherlands. She later earned her B.F.A. at Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA followed by graduate work at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
During her years of formal art study, Denise also traveled extensively in Europe, North Africa, India, South East Asia and South America, with pauses to live in Peru, Spain, and New York. But she always found her way back to Seattle where she curated the artist community that sustained her until the end, the artists she lived with in Belltown lofts and worked with at Cyclops and the Belltown Café.
Denise’s resume shows her first art exhibit was at the Cirque Gallery, Den Haag, Holland in 1978 followed by decades of exhibitions and commissions throughout Washington State and Barcelona, Spain.
She writes in an artist statement:
My travels and relationship to other cultures definitely informs my artwork, in underlying and sometimes obvious ways. . . .
I begin most pieces with the sense of a spinal chord. The body is a constant presence in my work, at times obvious, other times, nearly or totally obscured. The intuitive process of exploration with line, form, color and texture is what truly holds my interest in any medium.
In the second half of life, Denise found home in her Central District brick casa, where layers of found and created collections draped every surface and made spending time with Denise akin to visiting an art museum that procreated with a curiosity shop. Even Denise’s to-do lists scribbled on notecards were punctuated with sketches worthy of a frame.
May our memories of Denise carry her vision in the way she describes:
Memory in all of its convolutions demand for future adjustments. While past release becomes necessary. The mystery and the intuitive interaction that happens when I’m painting, translating layers of personal metaphors and ancient timelines that relate in various possible interpretations. My work is a positive and healing creation of beauty (which) is both desirable and needed.
We wish all who knew D to feel their unique recipe of tears and missing, deeply seasoned with gratitude and shared silly memories. Feel D unpacking her Mercado bag that magically morphed into an exotic nourishing salad in a tin painted or green pedestal bowl as big as D’s heart.
In this next chapter, Denise is no longer limited by her body. She is infinite, like her father’s words that adorned her desk, words he wrote as he faced his own immortality:
I feel at peace.
My molecules are at rest
They realize they have finished their task for this form.
They now dissolve and disperse to do other work.
Likewise, Denise’s unmistakable arrival into the room, now dispersed as molecules deployed to do even bigger universal work.
And while there could never be enough raw material to encapsulate the life that is D, we will do our best with a celebration of Denise’s life, to include a show of her work at 1pm on Sunday, January 28th at 4101 Airport Way SW, Seattle, WA 98108.
Denise was always such a burst of sunshine at any gathering when she entered. I’d say she was a blessed and happy person, in all her life. Sending love and sweet memories to her as she journeys through other galaxies. I’ll miss you sweet lady.
I was gifted to be able to meet and travel with Denise and friends on an adventure trek from Washington state via land rover down the Baja and then to San Miguel de Allende Mexico many years ago. It was a lovely to spend some time with her at that time.
She is gone to another dimension but not forgotten by us. Love her and feel her presence everyday. What a joy she brought to the world. Miss you D.