(no subject)
My friend was murdered yesterday.
A kind, gentle, warm and intelligent man who was passionate about jazz and art was killed in his gallery/home yesterday by a homeless man he was trying to help. He founded The Creole Gallery in Lansing's Old Town years ago and renovated several buildings on a block of Turner Street. He was thought of as a driving force in bringing culture to the town.
I held my first exhibit at the gallery. Even before it was a gallery, I photographed in the empty building. It is a beautiful, late-1800's raw space with brick walls and wide plank wood floors. Robert's apartment was upstairs, with an iron spiral staircase, floor to ceiling windows, a brick balcony. He just had his 60th birthday party in the gallery, with hundreds of his friends and family, candles, food and a salsa band. My friend and I forced him to dance with us.
Robert Busby was an exceptional person. He helped absolutely anyone he could. This death is the nail in the coffin for Old Town and Lasing's barely-functioning art environment. I feel like giving up in even trying. I won't, but I just don't understand how this could happen to someone so full of light, so alive and generous. He was one of those people who just gives off good energy, doing what he loved in life, and bringing nothing but good to the world.
I spoke with Robert's best friend last night, she could hardly form words. We are all stunned, angry and sick about this. The senselessness of it, the brutality of killing someone that had helped you and throwing their body down the stairs into their own basement.I'm going to go to his gallery tonight to light inscense for him and then to the Japanese garden to pray.
A kind, gentle, warm and intelligent man who was passionate about jazz and art was killed in his gallery/home yesterday by a homeless man he was trying to help. He founded The Creole Gallery in Lansing's Old Town years ago and renovated several buildings on a block of Turner Street. He was thought of as a driving force in bringing culture to the town.
I held my first exhibit at the gallery. Even before it was a gallery, I photographed in the empty building. It is a beautiful, late-1800's raw space with brick walls and wide plank wood floors. Robert's apartment was upstairs, with an iron spiral staircase, floor to ceiling windows, a brick balcony. He just had his 60th birthday party in the gallery, with hundreds of his friends and family, candles, food and a salsa band. My friend and I forced him to dance with us.
Robert Busby was an exceptional person. He helped absolutely anyone he could. This death is the nail in the coffin for Old Town and Lasing's barely-functioning art environment. I feel like giving up in even trying. I won't, but I just don't understand how this could happen to someone so full of light, so alive and generous. He was one of those people who just gives off good energy, doing what he loved in life, and bringing nothing but good to the world.
I spoke with Robert's best friend last night, she could hardly form words. We are all stunned, angry and sick about this. The senselessness of it, the brutality of killing someone that had helped you and throwing their body down the stairs into their own basement.I'm going to go to his gallery tonight to light inscense for him and then to the Japanese garden to pray.