The Artist and the Muse
A great soul has left this world.
Devin Bradley Gadouas died at 76 years old. He passed away in his favorite chair overlooking the art on his walls.
I’ve known Devin my whole life. He was Daddy’s best friend. Growing up, Devin was a beloved adult figure in our lives. As a child, I got the idea that he was my godfather. I don’t recall anyone ever telling me this, I just felt it in my bones. And though my parents never officially gave him that designation, he occupied that role in my heart.
Devin was a gifted artist. His primary modality was oil on canvas, though anything he touched turned to art.
His brushstrokes evoked island life, curious humans and spiritual expansion.
His photography looked like something out of a magazine.
His collages communicated precision and whimsy, somehow at the same time.
Devin was also a skilled woodworker and contractor. He once showed me a black and white photograph from the pages of Architectural Digest. It featured a pair of ivory arches opening onto a sunny brick courtyard. The contrast of shadow and light evoked a scene from a Roman piazza. The caption credited Devin Gadouas with the spectacular design and build.
Devin also had a deft touch when bringing sketches to life. Whether using charcoal, pen or colored pencil, he created sharp, vibrant little worlds. His odd characters jumped off the page, full of unique personality. Fat men, tropical birds, and produce wagons laden with fruit compelled you to linger longer, look deeper.
Devin saw fractals in everything. To him, the shape of a sailboat evoked the female form. Perhaps that is why he painted so many. Devin loved beautiful women.
Wandering through his house as a child, I looked in wonder at the iconic women on his walls. They strutted in heels and headbands, and gazed doe-eyed back at their creator. Looking at those paintings felt like peeking into a forbidden world.
In Devin’s hands, the mundane became magical.
A shattered mug became a blue mosaic gracing his front doorbell.
Driftwood was transformed into miniature tableaus of exotic Ottoman temples. Their elegant spires were carved by hand and crowned with shiny marbles.
Even an ordinary tissue box became a wonder to behold. Using sheets of opaque sea glass, Devin enveloped a cardboard box, trimmed its edges in slender copper and adorned it with iridescent gems.
Ten years ago, Devin joined us for Thanksgiving. In the kitchen, fervent dinner preparations were underway, while in the living room, guests mingled. I spotted Devin on a green velvet couch, his long legs crossed in front of him. I sat down and we fell into conversation that meandered through world travel and the natural world before finally settling on art. Devin described a sculpture he was working on:
‘It curves gracefully, like this,’ he said, tracing a finger down my cheekbone.
Devin saw the Muse in everything. To him, the world was perpetually inspiring. A cheekbone, the prow of a sailboat, the way two stones fit together- in these things, he saw beauty. Simple details that were invisible to much of the world revealed themselves to Devin. In this merging of his attention with life, exquisite art was made.
As he described his burgeoning sculpture, a thought occurred to me.
‘Devin, I have to show you something!!’ I said excitedly, taking his hand and leading him to my parent’s office. I turned on the computer, and after a moment, found what I was looking for.
‘An Artist’s Dwelling’ is a poem I wrote many years ago. Until that moment, I had never shown it to anyone. It was a recollection of my childhood memories of Devin’s house. After writing the poem, I forgot about it, and only remembered it when Devin traced his finger down my cheek.
I offered him my chair. I wondered if he would feel a resonance between my childhood memories of his home, and the way he experienced it.
He read the poem quietly. When he finished, he looked at me. His face was perfectly still.
‘You get me,’ he said simply.
I smiled.
‘It feels like you looked into my soul,’ he said.
Not long after, Devin had an abdominal aortic aneurysm. It nearly killed him. He managed to pull himself across the living room floor and call 911.
In the weeks that followed, he recovered in various nursing homes around Seattle. I visited him several times. He was hazy and doped-up. Our conversations traversed the usual terrain- music, life and art. And though he was only partially tethered to reality, his heart felt warm and full.
When Devin returned home, he was crippled. He could walk, but it was laborious. Nonetheless, he managed to make a weekly grocery run. He built himself a wooden rail that ran alongside his steep front stairs. This made it possible for him to reach the sidewalk. Once there, he could climb into his classic white Mercedes Benz and drive himself to Safeway.
He also built a contraption that helped him get around the house. It was a walker with a small tray attached to the front. The walker was arranged in front of his chair beside the big living room windows. As time went on, the chair and tray became Devin’s most immediate home.
From this vantage point, he could see his entire living room. His paintings graced the walls and gave him comfort. He liked being able to see each one.
In the years that followed, I visited Devin often. Once Karuna was born, I began to bring her with me. I would pack a diaper bag with snacks and toys, and as Devin and I visited, Karuna would pull herself up to standing using the edge of Devin’s coffee table. While we discussed reincarnation and art, Karuna would carefully traverse the perimeter of the coffee table on wobbly toddler legs.
When she was three, Devin invited her to draw with him. He pulled out a sketch pad and big purple pen and offered her the page. She gripped the pen in her chubby little hand and drew a jerky human form. Devin embellished it with goofy hair and ears, and they smiled at their finished product.
During one of my visits with Devin, he told me he intended to bequeath me his art.
‘You get it, sweetie,’ he said, tapping his cigarette on the edge of an ashtray.
I was touched. I have always loved Devin’s art. He was fond of telling me the story of when I was a one-year old baby. He carried me through the living room, pointing to different paintings. When we stopped in front of the colorful clown holding a massive bouquet of balloons, I reached out and tried to pinch its nose.
Whenever Devin recalled that story, he laughed with his head thrown back. ‘You’ve always had a connection to my art,’ he would say. ‘Even when you were very young.’
Just as my own children have known Devin all their lives, I have too.
Daddy’s brother, my Uncle Gary, met Devin in 1968. They worked for the Washington State Ferries on Bainbridge Island. Every day when Gary got off work, Devin came on to replace him. They became fast friends. Soon, my dad and Devin became close, as well.
Growing up, I remember Devin as a hippie with a halo of red hair. He was tall and warm. His presence felt safe and inviting.
When I was little, Daddy used to take me to Devin’s house. I loved those visits. While Devin and Daddy smoked pot and played records, I wandered through the house. It was like a cozy museum, magic hiding in every corner~
A tiny porcelain mouse tucked into a flourishing green houseplant.
An inviting bowl of colorful Hershey’s chocolates on the ash-burned coffee table.
The crimson-carpeted bathroom with a kingly tub and red telephone mounted on the wall.
Downstairs in the basement, Devin grew tall, skunky plants. Daddy carried me through the orderly rows while Devin pointed out heating lamps, or ran his fingers along the thick, fragrant stalks. While they talked, I admired the tiny golden crystals that clung to the sticky green buds.
Decades later, Devin would roll up a ‘doobie’ (his term) and pass it to me from his chair. Even though we were thirty years apart, we shared a love for Van Morrison, Gordon Lightfoot and Bob Dylan. We would smoke that joint until we were both very high and then leave it in the ashtray to burn.
During those visits, we talked about everything- the nature of physical reality, life after death, and the Muse.
The Muse, that mysterious force which animated and inspired our art was a topic to which we always returned. And though our mediums were different- I used a pen, he used a paintbrush- our process of translating Her energy was strikingly similar.
As artists, we are just the scribe. We are the instrument through which the music passes. But the energy that desires to manifest through us has a consciousness of its own. The marriage of the human and the energy is what allows great art to be born.
Once a painting, essay, or sculpture is created, it’s as though it were always there. Prior to its conception and birth, it simply existed on the astral plane. As artists, our job is to sense its potentiality and use our tools to bring it to life. This looks like mixing colors, putting words to feelings, and creating elegant shapes from the elements. We carve, sculpt and prune our creations into being. Our work is complete when we have revealed the essence of a frequency in form.
This is a messy process. We leave many scraps on the floor. Some creations never come to fruition. Others become timeless masterpieces.
Devin and I knew this. We were eternal students of Creation. We acknowledged the gifts we had been given and were grateful to serve the Muse.
Devin was born in Roswell, New Mexico in 1949. His mother, as he said, was a whore.
‘She was beautiful,’ he acknowledged, lifting his eyebrows in memory of her red lips and shapely legs.
‘But she was a whore. That’s how I came to be here. She cheated on her husband when he was away on duty. When he returned, she was pregnant again.’
Devin’s stepfather never liked him, he said. He was the odd kid out, a green-eyed redhead among four dark-haired siblings.
‘I was smarter than them, too,’ he said, puffing on his cigarette.
‘I won the State Art Fair when I was nine. I drew a picture of my family standing in front of a circus car. The judges saw it and gave me a blue ribbon.’
He ground out his cigarette. ‘That’s when I realized I had a gift. I knew it was my ticket out.’
After Devin graduated high school, he attended The Art Institute of Seattle. He continued to garner attention and accolades. His art expanded into carpentry and contracting, and soon he was running a business of his own.
I remember Devin laying cement with Daddy in our backyard. Out of nothing, there was suddenly an elegant swirl of stone separating the foliage from the house. They laid wide, shallow steps that curved in a gentle spiral down to the patio. Hostas and ferns populated the rockery, and raked gravel completed the look. Daddy’s gifts in the garden merged with Devin’s mastery of form, and in one afternoon, our backyard was significantly upgraded.
Devin often gave me lessons in form. Sitting in his living room one afternoon, he spoke of composition.
‘See that collage over there?’ he asked, gesturing to a tall easel. The canvas displayed a multi-media collection done in reds, blacks and beiges.
I nodded.
‘If you look, sweetie, you’ll notice that I only use three shapes in that entire piece,’ he said. ‘Look closely. What do you see?’
I examined the canvas, intricate hidden worlds tucked among greater geometric structures.
‘I see circles, squares, and triangles,’ I said after a moment.
‘That’s right!’ said Devin, tapping his cigarette on the ashtray.
‘Those three shapes form the foundation for every other shape in creation.’
One afternoon eight years ago, I paid Devin a visit. I brought him homemade beef stew and chocolate chip cookies. His mobility was limited and he appreciated eating meals he didn’t have to cook. I handed him a pack of Camel Blue 99’s and got to work emptying his trash.
This was our standard routine. In the years since his accident, our visits had certain hallmarks. I always brought him food and cigarettes, then emptied his trash and brought the bins to the alley. After that, we sat and chatted.
As the years went on, Devin wanted to talk about death more and more. He knew it was on the horizon, and he wondered where he would go when he died. He wasn’t sure if he believed in reincarnation. And though he didn’t worry about going to hell, he also wasn’t sold on the promise of a biblical heaven. Devin was humble in recognizing his place in the order of things.
‘I’m just another critter walking this earth like trillions of critters before me,’ he’d say. ‘I don’t think anything special is going to happen to me.’
Over the years, he read a number of books on Near Death Experiences. One of his favorites was ‘Proof of Heaven’ by Eben Alexander. I also read the book, as did my entire family. It is the written account of a neurosurgeon who lived entirely in the domain of his mind. But after contracting a rare form of meningitis, he fell into a coma and underwent a profound experience in the afterlife. His journey is deeply moving. It shatters the paradigm that death is the end and consciousness is generated in the brain. Alexander’s account strikes an intuitive chord that Death is just a doorway to more Life.
On this particular afternoon, I finished my tasks and joined Devin in the living room. He was munching contentedly on a chocolate chip cookie. Warm light spilled in through the west-facing windows. His art was perfectly highlighted on the walls.
The moment felt timeless. It was as though many versions of me were present at once: The five-year old me searching for a mouse in a houseplant. The young adult me inspecting the art on the walls for the hundredth time. The present-day-me, dusty from taking out Devin’s trash, but grateful for our friendship.
I sensed that Devin could feel the multiplicity of the moment, as well.
Presently, he said, ‘I’m going to leave you this house when I die.’
I looked at him, surprised.
‘No one loves it like you do,’ he said.
I was quiet for a moment. Then I put my hands on my heart.
‘Thank you, Devin,’ I said. ‘I’ll take good care of it when you’re gone.’
Three weeks ago, I paid Devin a visit. He had finally agreed to let me clean his kitchen. For years, he said no when I offered. I think it was a point of pride for him. But on this occasion, he said yes, so I arrived with cleaning spray, scouring powder, sponges, towels and gloves. I made my usual pit stop at the gas station for cigarettes, then stopped by McDonald’s for a Quarter Pounder with Cheese. Devin never wanted anything fancy.
‘Hey sweetie!’ he said as I walked in. The back of his hair was a matted rat’s nest from perpetually sitting in his chair. And though the house was dingy and gray, I felt a palpable emanation of love when I walked in.
I gave Devin his food and cigarettes, then rolled up my sleeves and got to work. I started by emptying the dish rack which hadn’t been touched in months. Then I turned my attention to the massive pile of dishes in the sink. One by one, I washed them by hand before stacking them on clean towels I’d laid out. After thirty minutes, I reached the bottom. The dishes were clean, but the sink itself was still streaked with sludge. I scrubbed it with scouring powder and a stiff sponge, and slowly the white porcelain was revealed.
Once the sink was immaculate, I swept the floor and stacked bags of trash. Then I noticed the dishwasher. Curious, I looked inside. It was full of dishes that had been there for months. Some were thick with grime. I looked for detergent, but couldn’t find any. Because I needed to get home to my kids, I didn’t want to run to the store. I deliberated for a moment, and suddenly had an idea:
My cousin Sean lived two blocks away!
Sean and I were born months apart. We’ve always had a beautiful relationship. Since becoming a mom, I haven’t seen him as much, but I’m always delighted when I do.
I picked up the phone to call him and he answered on the second ring. He was watching the basketball game at a bar down the street, and said he’d be right over. Ten minutes later, he walked through the door and gave Devin a hearty greeting. Then he passed through the house and found me in the kitchen, scrubbing cupboards on hands and knees. I stood up, sticky and sweaty.
‘I’m gross,’ I said, laughing and holding up gloved hands.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said, pulling me in for a huge hug.
We talked for a few minutes. ‘When’s the last time you were here?’ I asked.
Sean looked around with wide eyes. ‘Probably twenty years ago,’ he said.
Sean and I grew up going to Devin’s house. His dad, my Uncle Gary, was as close to Devin as my own dad was. Sean and I have known Devin our whole lives. And because Devin never had children of his own, Sean and I and our siblings were the closest thing to kids Devin had.
Sean and I got the dishwasher running, and then he joined Devin in the living room. My heart swelled to hear them talking and laughing. Devin didn’t get a lot of visitors, so it was special for him to have Sean and I in one night.
I wrapped up in the kitchen and stood back to admire my work. I hadn’t seen it so clean in ten years. I took a deep, satisfied breath. The empty sink and polished counters felt like a testament to my love for Devin.
Because they were still talking in the living room, I decided to tidy up the bathroom. I scrubbed the toilet, emptied the wastebasket and wiped down the sink. Then I joined them.
Those next few minutes were very special. There was a lot of love in that room. We talked and laughed, and Sean gave Devin his phone number. ‘Call me if you need anything, buddy,’ he said. ‘I live right down the street.’
Devin smiled. He felt like an old man to me, but also like the warm soul we have always known. In that moment, the love between us all was timeless.
Then it was time to go. Sean stood up and took Devin’s hand. He squeezed it and said goodbye.
I followed Sean and put my hand on Devin’s shoulder. It felt very frail. I told him I loved him, like I always do.
‘I love you too, sweetie,’ he said.
I gently closed the door.
Devin died several days later.
In the wake of his death, I have felt many things:
Waves of grief that become sobs in my body, leaving my eyes red and burning. A heightened awareness of the sacred nature of each precious moment. And a sense of overwhelm as I look forward to all that lies ahead.
I was the sole heir to Devin’s estate. But when he died, he had a reverse mortgage and a litany of unpaid bills. Therefore, his house has entered foreclosure and goes to auction in just three weeks.
Suddenly, the accelerator of my life is pressed all the way to the floor. At this point, there are more questions than answers:
Will we live there?
Will the reverse mortgage company take it?
If we do get the house, how long will it take to make it liveable again?
And of course, where is the money coming from?
I have no answers to these questions. But I never do when a desire is born. All I can do is align with the vision and stay open to possibility.
My entire life has been a trust-fall.
Each new desire that blooms inside of me is an invitation to expand. Regardless of whether or not I can see the path to its realization, my practice is to lean into faith.
The rest is in God’s hands.
Before Devin’s death, we often talked about where souls go when we die. I had a vision of Devin’s soul riding a golden carpet of light over a vast meadow. In this vision, his spirit was exhilarated and free. The artist was now in a new dimension, embarking on a cosmic adventure.
I sensed that he would visit me.
‘Devin, you’ve got to pop in and see me once in a while,’ I’d say. ‘You can find me in the living room on a sunny afternoon and inspire me to create.’
Devin agreed, though he wasn’t sure it was possible. I, however, am.
I know that an imprint of Devin’s soul lives on in his abode. His artistic spirit permeated those walls for fifty years. In its prime, Devin’s house was a vortex of creative energy.
In the last ten years of his life, that changed.
The Muse stopped visiting Devin, and though he waited, She did not return. His house turned gray and dusty and his paintings lost their luster. On his art table, acrylics gathered dust and paintbrushes sat untouched. His final collage remains on its easel, yet to find a home.
I long to return color to Devin’s house. I want to open the windows and paint the walls. My prayer is to love it back to life, one project at a time.
As color and light return to Devin’s house, I believe the Muse will return. I believe She and I will co-create beautifully, and that our old friend Devin will add inspiration to our creations.
I always told Devin that I would never sell his paintings. They belong exactly where they are. His eye for symmetry extended beyond the paintings themselves, and was evident in their intentional placement throughout his home. Once the house is resurrected, I will return Devin’s paintings to the walls. This is one way I will honor his legacy.
Someone who lives in their logical mind might say that I’m making a foolish decision. It would certainly be easier to sell the house and wash my hands of it. There would be a lot less work involved. But I don’t spend an excessive amount of time in my logical mind. I prefer to dwell in the realm of divine possibility. That’s what an artist does, right? Senses what cannot be seen and brings it to life in the physical world?
Devin’s house is now my muse. It is full of possibility and promise. I can see the backyard, sunny and terraced, growing tomatoes, raspberries, and sunflowers. I can see the bedroom windows thrown open, a fresh breeze teasing the curtains. I can see his wooden sculptures polished to a high shine, reflecting the afternoon sun. And I can feel Devin’s spirit occasionally peeking in, suggesting an edit here or a splash of color there.
This is my vision. I invite you to join me in holding it. Every breath we breathe into it is a breath that brings it closer to manifestation.
Love and magic,
Sarah Trudeau
I’m thankful to have met Devin through your beautiful tribute. What a special relationship, mentor, uncle to have had all these years. Cleaning with love is its own category. I enjoyed that as much I enjoyed visualizing and seeing his amazing art.
I’m holding the dream with you. It feels right - a big, fat, practical, financial challenge to master that will reap intangible rewards in the long run. Leading to your list of desires. 🤍
May you expand through this and feel Devin’s presence, especially when you need it most.
What a beautiful masterpiece you have written. It brought me right into your magical experience with your dear friend and engulfed my mind with my own compatible love that exists between a rare few who are part of our destiny. Thank you for the inspiring flow of your artistic medium that channeled your muse.❤️😉