Feb 7th, Jill was my Best and First Adult Girlfriend- I miss her~

 Today I feel strong enough to spill a lot, like ripping off the bandaid. Not that this is going to go away.

So here is more sad news.

Jill Klenke/Smith, a brilliant and loving light on this planet, succumbed to her struggle with depression last week and took her own life the morning of Sunday January 29th.

My first Mayday! Jill helped a lot~ She introduced me to the Heart of the Beast~ and to Duane...

Jill came up to the Grand Marais Art Colony with us many times to work. This was 2012-

And this was 2007~

I met Jill in Uptown through Steven, a fellow guard at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, which was the only job I could find after I graduated from St Ben's in 1989 with a double major in Art and English...

I was living with Steven and Patti in a fantastic ramshackle duplex on Franklin Ave, just up the hill from Mortimer's Bar, and Jill was another Wisconsinite who had moved to Uptown. The three were friends, Jill had dated Steven and I had a crush on him too, and after a pinch of rivalry, Jill and I became deep and fast friends. 

Jill introduced me to the world of Outsider Art, of the possibilities available in this big wide world and how anyone can be a creative person and an artist, ya just gotta do it, which I think was Fred Smith's catchphrase. Fred was one of Jill's pet projects, his Wisconsin Concrete Park in Phillips WI where she spent a lot of time and where a lot of us Puppet Children who grew up playing at the Heart of the Beast joined Jill to create a number of pageants and stilling festivals and all kinds of fun adult nonsense. I remember dumpster diving with Jill one summer to find as many green and clear liter pop bottles so we could cut them up and create costumes for stilters that would appear to be Fred Smith's statues come to life.

Jill was always looking for something fun and creative to do. I also remember in her small Uptown apartment, she had bought a new tiny TV and VCR player, and had two remotes and found herself a holster to keep the remotes in. Which cracked me up.

She also had a pair of hamsters in that little apartment, and had a habitrail running all along her ceiling for the hamsters to run in. And when they got old and ended up failing, she created concrete crypts for them, encrusted with glass and baubles.

When my heart was broken by a boyfriend in 1992, she held me for a weekend as I cried and cried. And she introduced me to Duane walking around Lake of the Isles in 1993. She also introduced me to my first husband that year, and took the photos at our wedding in 1997(?), at which Duane was the best man. That's another story~

Jill lived in Minneapolis for several years and decided to move home to Wisconsin, I can't remember when. All my photos and journals of that time are in our burnt house, and I don't know if I can read them or look through them. But I went to see her as often as I could. Most often, I'd go in my mom's White Cabriolet Convertible with my sweet rescue Lab-Mutt, Bingo. Bing and I would drive the 5 hours to Appleton and hang out with Jill- I was there when she met Rick, at a Blues bar where we danced and drank beer and laughed all night. Rick is a great laugher.

Duane and I were at Jill's wedding to Rick- 

That's Duane's arm to the left, and Jill has her white dress and white sandals on. This photo was upstairs in  my bedroom on my dresser where I could see it every morning.

Jill always remembered our birthdays and was at my wedding to Duane in 2008. She just has always been there for me. She knew Max as a baby, and we'd bring him to the cabin with us, where all our dogs were also welcome. Jill had us all kayaking and Max was a natural and she knew just how to urge him on. He loved it all. She was the great older sister that I hadn't had, and a fantastic auntie to Max. 

For those of you who were fortunate enough to know Jill, she was warm and open and laughed a lot. 

Toward the end of her life, she was struggling with her growing blindness. The loss of her sight also meant the loss of her creative activities like drawing and sewing, as well as the loss of her driver's license. She was able to bike around Appleton, WI, and also had a little moped at her and her husband Rick's cabin in Spread Eagle, WI, which wasn't far from where her mom Karen and her sister Jennifer live in Niagara, WI.

But I think she was dealing with a lot of pain that she couldn't put down. 

She was always helping others, taking care of others, figuring out what would be the best for others, but it was hard for her to know how to help herself.

We are hoping to have some kind of remembrance for her at Fred Smith's Wisconsin Concrete Park in the spring or summer,  and there is meant to be a life celebration in Appleton WI in the upcoming weeks as well.

Right now, Jill's body still has not been found. She was walking across a bridge in Appleton with her cousin Chrissy on that Sunday morning and stepped over the rail.

I'll post here, or you can email or call me for news of when and where there will be a service.

I think the family, Rick her husband, and Karen her mom, and Jenny her sister, are still working out what to do.

Thank you, and I'm sorry to be posting this here, so abruptly.