Goodbye, Cleo Kenyon
Artist in Residence: Rabbani Kenyon
As an art student at the California College of Arts and Crafts, Rabbani Kenyon found his way to the Mendocino Coast by hitchhiking up here on weekends from Oakland. He would pack his sleeping bag and sketchbook and escape the Bay Area.
Eventually, in the early 1970s, he settled first in Branscomb, and then in Fort Bragg with his first wife and their two daughters. He worked the mill in Branscomb and was good at it, but it demanded too much and left little time for his art. So, he moved to Fort Bragg where his wife taught and he began working with wood in another manner.
While painting was the focus of his master’s program, Rabbani started wood carving large pieces to support the family. He first roughs out a piece of redwood or nutmeg with a chainsaw and then uses an angle sander to shape and sand the sculptures. Finally, they are detailed with a die grinder, and some of the work is burned, stained, or painted.
It was Rabbani’s second marriage to Cleo, who passed away this January after a long illness, that would lead him to Elk. Rabbani met Cleo when she came into his gallery in Noyo Harbor and asked the time. Rabbani replied, “Now,” which also happened to be on the wristwatch of his “Grandfather Frog” sculpture. Cleo bought the sculpture.
Rabbani says of Cleo, “She was my perfect mate and had my heart.” Cleo was, “The spirit in the room, rather than the person,” Rabbani says, and she loved to collage and work with flowers. He called her his “flower fairy.”
Cleo left her career as a social worker in Pennsylvania where she helped rehabilitate people who were incarcerated and moved permanently to California in 1997. Rabbani remembers
a magical moment on Caspar Beach with Cleo where he sat observing her as she collected stones and shells along the shore. As the sun set, the play of light made a glowing outline of her body, and then she would completely disappear for a moment — he would paint this transcendence later.
Rabbani and Cleo moved to Elk in 2009 at the suggestion of fellow artist and friend, Craig Hathaway. Craig suggested Rabbani join the Artists’ Collective Gallery in Elk when Rabbani lost his gallery space in Fort Bragg, and after coming to a Great Day in Elk, Cleo was sold on the idea as well. They lived up Greenwood Road briefly before finding Rabbani’s current home and studio on the south side of Greenwood Creek.
Another artist, Judith Hale was moving out of the house, and while they did not know each other, Judith and Rabbani put it together that they had both graduated from the California College of Arts & Crafts
on the same day! With Cleo’s passing, Rabbani will soon resume his post at the gallery where you will once again be able to watch him at his work, chainsaw and grinder in hand.
Cleo Kenyon is also survived by two older brothers and other, extended family in Pennsylvania who love and miss her dearly. Our hearts and condolences go out to Rabbani and to Cleo’s family.