I have known Kelly , or Kelly Jo.. for most of the time I've been in
WS-- about 15 years. I had the privilege to share quite a few laughs,
a few girl's nights and share in an abundance of light she always
seemed to have around her.
But the real gift Kelly gave me was the opportunity to photograph two
very personal events in her life... which happened to be during the
last few months of her life. I like many people, did not realize how
sick Kelly had become because of that spark she kept in everything
about her.. her laugh, her love and her art.
I cannot really explain what these events triggered in my own soul..
but what I witnessed in Kelly and Ralph's commitment was the purest
form of love. I realized on the night of December 20th where Kelly
was in her illness. It left me with a greater understanding of what
life needs to be.
A few days after their party, I stopped by to give Kelly a couple
prints for Christmas. She was working on a painting she wanted to
finish for a man who commissioned her to do a painting for his wife.
she was upset that it had not gotten finished, but was excited about
the project. He had told her the story of he and his wife's love and
Kelly was working the story into that painting.
I could see how weak she was , but again... there was that spark in
her eyes she always had and it moved me that she would be thinking of
doing something for someone else when she felt so bad herself. But
that was Kelly Jo.
- Christine Rucker
I am completely taken off guard by this loss, not so good at staying in touch This is poetry I wrote while gazing at some abstract paintings by Kelly a lifetime ago, when I worked in her lamp studio. It is all I really have to celebrate her with, apart from my own fondness for her, which will remain. Regards to everyone touched by this.
Sincerely, Andrew Pennington
Surface of Gone
steering...
not steering...
on and on it goes.....
duality,
centered and internally warmed,
expands into neat compartments,
laden with charge.
a royal utopia,
stocked and adorned
with strings and streams of gestating pregnancies
is now taking form.
a still blue statement
curves and rises,
into exclamatory roar.
a rudeness runs across the palest edges.
response and reversal-
further exposes the stain,
and complication ensues.....
muddying the explanation.
everyone retires
on the history of anger's directions.
passion remains,
unweathered,
and emanating through the seams.
the blisters of misunderstanding-
and the hardest spheres of known,
are already dissolving
into a fresh, black,
surface of gone.
Personal Narrative written while viewing a series of color abstracts by Kelly Petersen
I remember Kelly when she was a fun loving teenager. When her mom and my brother got married I knew they fit into our family like the perfect pieces to finalize a jigsaw puzzle. Kelly would twist her body like a pretzel and rough it up with my teddy bear brother. He was no match for Kelly or her mom Bertie. She was the sweetest girl ever and we will miss her very much. I am sorry that I didn't get to see her before her passing.
Linda Leonardi Hernando, Fl.
I knew Kelly only briefly, but found her to be a beautiful persons!! I am only sorry that I could not have known her more!! She left an impression that will always want me to be a better person!!SHE ROCKED!!
Wendy C. Davis