Beach House, Spring 2024

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22 | Provincetown Independent | BEACH / HOUSE | Spring 2024 The Art of Blanche Lazzell’s Flowers continued from page 21 elbows are not strong enough to carry water another summer. I think that excuse is enough to have that convenience, don’t you?” To promote the sale of her artwork, Lazzell held classes and intimate teas at her studio where she served sponge cake, cream cheese and pimento sandwiches, and saltines with homemade beach plum jelly. “I have had four teas since the first of Sept.,” Lazzell wrote in a 1932 letter. “You see my teas cost very little. My flower seeds more than paid for them.” She harvested her seeds for sale as a side gig, especially her petunias with their almost cubist stripes, rays, veins, and splotches. “People everywhere are after my petunia seeds,” she wrote. “I am selling them for 35 cents a package” — around $7 today. Hers were worth it, she explained: “Of course the package is not big but mine are bigger than the ones from the regular florists. And my seeds are more rare for they are my own culture.” Alongside these practical preoccupations, there was something almost mystical about the garden for Lazzell. “You feel, or what Mr. Hofmann says, ‘you experience’ the flowers, then your subconscious mind does the arrangement,” she wrote to her sister. “We must know and experience, feel to the depths of our soul, the flower, then we have this inner power to do things with it … That is art.” She knew of her value, and perhaps even her future importance as one of the earliest American abstract artists, especially as a woman. When needing to pay a tax bill in 1932, Lazzell urged her sister to sell some of her prints back in West Virginia. “This is a fine investment for anyone who has the money to spare. For these prints will be worth more than a hundred dollars before you know it and especially when I no longer make them,” she wrote. “And they are admired by the leading modern painters in this country and abroad.” “She’s definitely at the top of the pyramid now,” says Jim Bakker of Bakker Gallery in Provincetown. “It seems to me that she has eclipsed many of the male Provincetown artists who were more famous than she was during her lifetime, especially at auctions today. When you look at the other people working in the whiteline printing style, she had a big influence over many people who came after her.” Always as independent as she could possibly be, Blanche Lazzell lived in Provincetown until her death at 77 in 1956. In her later years, the garden declined, and her beloved wharf studio at 351C Commercial St., which tragically escaped the attention of local preservationists, was demolished during a renovation by the new owners in 2002. “People in town at the time felt like its destruction somehow slipped through and shouldn’t have happened,” Bakker remembers. Lazzell lived in Provincetown on her own terms. Even if it wasn’t always easy, it was worth it — a sentiment many residents today would echo. “The thing is to live as simply as possible and do our own work,” she wrote to her sister in 1932 at the age of 54. “That is what I have done all along & that is what hurts my knees. It felt so good when I came back to town. Two yachts are out there with tall sails. The water is always so beautiful, and my work goes on. I have my painting & I am well. That much to be thankful for. Love to all, Blanche.” Marigolds, 1938, a white-line wood block print on loan to the Provincetown Art Association and Museum. Lazzell’s homegrown flowers provided endless opportunities for her explorations in abstraction. (Photo courtesy PAAM) ‘I bought a dozen lovely petunias last week and set them out, one in a keg instead of three as I used to. The woman in the shop started to give me directions & explain why they were cut back. In turn, I explained to her why they should not be cut back and let her know that I have had 25 years’ experience with fluffy petunias.’ — Lazzell in a letter to her sister, June 25, 1945 Lazzell wrote that she loved to share her petunias, both in bouquets for friends and to take to patients in the hospital. (Photo courtesy Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution) Looking from the end of Lazzell’s studio pier, now demolished, toward 351 Commercial St., which was formerly a fire house. (Photo courtesy Provincetown History Project) At Cape Cod 5, we’re here to support your financing needs. Mortgage • Home Equity • Solar Loans Accessory Dwelling Unit Loans & More 137 Bradford Street, Provincetown capecodfive.com | 888-225-4636 Member FDIC NMLS #401717
New Price TRURO 10 Wellsweep Lane $3,270,000 | 4 BD | 1F 1H BA | 2,448 SF Located on one of the most beautiful waterfront sites along the Truro bayside, this authentic, well-preserved, mid-century South Truro beach house is set high and back on the dune. The careful siting of the home takes advantage of the hillside gently falling away, giving the property water views that are more expansive than most other waterfront properties. The outstanding view includes a rare meadow view and a dramatic sweep of the beach, spanning from Fisher Beach around to Long Point at the tip of Provincetown. This exceptional property is ready for a new owner to enjoy this summer. Ashley Fawkes Broker Associate ashley.fawkes@compass.com M: 508.237.1986 2548 Route 6 Wellfleet, MA 02667 compass.com Compass is a licensed real estate broker and Kinlin Grover Realty Group, LLC is a licensed real estate broker affiliated with Compass and each abides by Equal Housing Opportunity laws. All material presented herein is intended for informational purposes only. Information is compiled from sources deemed reliable but is subject to errors, omissions, changes in price, condition, sale, or withdrawal without notice. Photos may be virtually staged or digitally enhanced and may not reflect actual property conditions.
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