Wendy Everett Calendar Pages 1975-1980

Five hand drawn calendar pages from 1975-1980 (1979 missing) created by artist Wendy Everett. Born in Washington, D.C. to Chauncey and Mary Hackett, Wendy was raised in 1930s and 1940s Provincetown, which flavored her life ever after. Wendy and her lifelong friends, sisters Nancy Whorf and Carol Whorf (Westcott), worked as teen apprentices in Peter Hunt's workshop in the 1940s. A confirmed West Ender, Wendy spent summers in the 50s and 60s at the family house on Nickerson Street and later at Ruth Hiebert's Captain Jack's Wharf. She loved spur of the moment off season visits, often staying with Jack and Adelaide Gregory at the "Oldest House." In 1972 she returned with her son Toby to live in Town full time. In the 1960s Wendy was a regular on the beach watching the spectacle at the West End Racing Club, often with her friend Rhoda Rossmore. After seeing a pen and ink drawing she had done showing one summer's high jinks at the club, Larry Richmond enlisted her to do a new picture annually, which he mailed to families and friends in the depths of winter as a reminder of the spirited scene each summer: kids learning to sail, swim, braid gimp, drink Nemasket soda, and flirt, and adults practicing "going nowhere fast." There was Francis John winning a race, Fred Hemley nearly capsizing, Wally O'Donnell by his dory, Donald Murphy gesticulating, Jim Ferreira and Ken Gregory with scuba gear, Larry fixing a rooftop wind gauge, and Dick Santos patching yet another damaged hull. For many years Wendy's Christmas cards were single page calendars in pen and ink showing the months and days intertwined with familiar Provincetown images - the harbor at dusk, cleats, fish, gulls, waves, weir traps, fishermen, the monument, the A & P, and faces. In the winters Rhoda helped Wendy find old breadboxes and sundry other items in junk shops and antique shops, on which Wendy would paint Provincetown things, such as Perry's Market, the Town Hall, the harbor, boats, fish, a local house, sometimes with a vibrant Peter Hunt flourish but likelier in a quiet, bemused fashion. Like her painter mother, Mary Hackett, Wendy's pictures never failed to be personal, even when she was painting an inanimate object. A gift to the Provincetown History Project from Dana Berry and Deborah DeJonker-Berry.

Artwork

Art and Provincetown (Mass.)--History--20th century