Born: March 4, 1925, in Richmond, Indiana
Died: January 10, 2018, at Elderwood Uihlein Living Center, Lake Placid
Married: Dicki Jenkins
Children: Daniel T. Jenkins, Mary Victoria (Tori) Jenkins, Carol C Jenkins Blackmore, Spencer Jenkins
Grandchildren: Melody Blackmore, Ivy Blackmore, Collin Blackmore, Asher Blackmore
F. Raymond Jenkins Jr., known as Ray, of Upper Saranac Lake, was an architectural designer and painter. "His watercolors were exquisite, very traditional, very nice," said a friend. He had a major role in keeping the Swenson Camp from being acquired by the state of New York, which would have meant the destruction of the buildings.
A brief death notice appeared in the Adirondack Daily Enterprise on January 13, 2018. There are no calling hours and memorial services will take place at the convenience of the family.
Plattsburgh Press-Republican, January 10, 2019
Remembering the Jenkins
SARANAC LAKE — Midwinter is a between time, limbo, where past and present billow like a snow squall caught with autumn leaves.
It's the right time for a retrospective exhibition of two exquisite watercolor artists, the late Ray and Dicki Jenkins, at the Adirondack Artists Guild.
A reception is set for 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, Jan. 11, and the show runs through Jan. 27.
PRAGMATIC PHILOSOPHY
Ray's artist philosophy was as forthright as his watercolor paintings and pencil drawings of the Adirondacks, Ocracoke Island, North Carolina's Outer Banks and the Down East Maine coast.
He wrote: "The artist has to stand there and look, or imagine, with a deeper eye. Dig in, look deeper into the subject. Look at relationships as well as color and value, composition, size, light and dark, but also at what you want to say, and don't be afraid to say it.
"Seeing beyond just looking is a process that goes along with all aspects of life."
In Saranac Lake, he was a founding member of the Artists Guild along with Mark Kurtz, Corey Pandolph, Ralph Prata and Eleanor Sweeney, when it opened in 1997.
Dicki joined their ranks later.
It was at this juncture that Guild member and photographer Barry Lobdell met them.
“I knew Ray a bit better simply because I had a lot interactions with him about his work,” he said.
“He asked me if would I photograph his original pieces so that he had a record of them and also so that prints could be made. He did market some prints.”
He loved Ray's work through his close encounters with it.
“He did a lot of work here in the Adirondacks, of course, where he lived, but he also had a lot of images from Maine where they would often go to create work while they were there," Lobdell said.
"And, that's some of my favorite stuff, actually. I really enjoy his maritime pieces a lot.”
BACK STORY
Ray received a Bachelor of Arts from Earlham College in Richmond, Ind.
So did Dicki, who majored in art and physical education.
Ray and Dicki met in an art class.
Mary Victoria "Dicki" was a Catholic from Catonsville, Maryland.
Ray was a local Quaker.
They were both athletic, played sports and were artistic.
She was a freshman.
He was a senior.
“They weren't supposed to get married, but they did,” said Carol Blackmore, their daughter, an artist and custom weaver in North Carolina.
Ray and Dicki married in 1951 in a sheep pasture in her mother's backyard in Anderson, Ind.
He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where he majored in industrial design.
Ray settled into a career as an architectural designer after forays as an industrial designer and commercial artist.
Dicki pursued studies in painting and drawing at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.
SOUTHEAST PA
After teaching two years at Westtown School, a Quaker boarding school, Ray started his architectural design business.
Dicki was an athletic coach for two decades at Westtown.
“They didn't like the congestion of the sprawling Philadelphia, so they moved to the Adirondacks,” Blackmore said.
“We went there pretty much every summer. They would rent a place. It was a place they knew pretty well, and he found a job at a place in the Tupper Lake area.”
A botanical illustration class lured her back to painting at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pa.
Botanical painting was a skill she transferred to the Adirondacks, when she and Ray relocated there in 1976.
Carol was just graduating high school and heading to Colgate University when her parents moved to the Adirondack Park.
“My brother Dan was off in college,” Blackmore said.
“My sister Tori was at Earlham College. Spencer started 8th grade in Saranac Lake. He was more of a hometown kid. He did the boat works, Spencer Boatworks, for a number of years with Jay Annis. Spencer left, and it's now owned by his partner.”
HERE STORY
Ray had a lot of good luck in life, and it held when he was looking for lodgings in the 'Dacks.
"He found a property that needed a caretaker on the southern end of Upper Saranac Lake," Blackmore said.
"It's called Indian Carry. The owner decided to sell, and Dad helped with the development of that property. It was divided, and he and my mother bought a piece of the land."
The camp, a monstrous, European chalet with 19 fireplaces, was chopped into three wings moved by a man named Vanbuten of Greene, NY.
Her parents' wing was moved over a 10th of a mile from the site of the former Rustic Lodge, an early Adirondack establishment.
“My parents had a terrific view down the lake because they took the part of the building where it was cut, they swiveled it and placed it on the field looking down the lake," Blackmore said.
"So the whole end of the house is basically a window. People walk in there and say, 'Oh, my God.' It was very cold. They never left except for trips. They liked to travel. The traveled sometimes with my kids and me.”
Ray designed several local architectural projects and a number of Adirondack camps.
Gradually, he returned to painting and drawing and began to exhibit his work in 1991.
“He was like, 'It's time,'” Blackmore recalled.
“'I'm not going to be able to do this forever. I got to get back to doing this.' I'm exactly in the same position right now."
Ray set up a studio, purchased quality materials and started working big and got serious.
Within a few years, national accolades followed from the National Exhibition of American Watercolors at the Arts Center in Old Forge, Salmagundi American Watercolor Society International Show, Pennsylvania National Watercolor Show and Kentucky National Show.
He was a signature member of the North East Watercolor Society.
Dicki focused on the microcosm of Adirondack flowers, ferns and fungi growing in the gardens, woods and meadows surrounding their Upper Saranac Lake home.
Her watercolor and gouache, tiny-sable-brushed works flowered from lash-thin detail to abstraction.
In the show, “Yellow Roses” is an exact rendering.
“It looks like you can just go up and touch the flower,” Blackmore said.
“Her work got more and more abstract. That was her main employment, although they didn't make much money from it. She had put some inheritance that allowed her to do more, which is nice."
Dicki was the recipient of awards from the National Exhibition of American Watercolors at the Arts Center in Old Forge and the Miniature Art Society.
Matting and framing was a team effort, and presentation was of paramount importance to, as Dicki would say, “pull it all together.”
Blackmore set up her father with prints of his work.
“I did it so that Dad could feel good about his work, to see people buying it,” she said.
“We could keep the prices lower. He sold a lot at the Wild Center in Tupper Lake. Then, I made prints of my mother's stuff.”
OUT THERE
Blackmore home-schooled her kids, so they could all travel together.
Ray and Dicki went out to the Mid-West a few times, but Maine and the Outer Banks were touchstones.
“Once or twice a year we would go on a trip like that,” Blackmore said.
“My kids had a different experience the first eight to 10 years. It stuck with them, and they have a combination of discipline and free spirit because they know how to pick up and go and travel and camp and live off to the land to an extent partly because of what we did at that time.”
Ray and Dicki enjoyed traveling to paint new vistas, whether joining friends and other painters on excursions to coastal Maine.
Their maritime works highlight the ravages of wind, water and time on boats and weathered structures of the fishing industry.
Her father's love of sailing was from his birthplace of Hampton Roads, Va., where his father taught at Hampton College.
"Part of Dad's independence and just love of life came from a childhood where he was a campus faculty brat and had run of the campus," Blackmore said.
"It was also his personality. He would ride his bike everywhere. He would go out and sail by himself out in the ocean at age 8, 9 or 10. Go fishing. He loved sailing.”
Ray and Dicki started the Upper Saranac Lake Sailing Association, which involved their children, grandchildren and half dozen neighbors and their crews.
They wintered here but come March, they often packed their gear and headed south to the Outer Banks.
Ray died in February 2018, and Dicki passed away in July 2017.
Their cremains are in a between time.
“My kids all want to be there, and they all work,” Blackmore said.
“Both of my parents asked their ashes be sprinkled at the Singing Bridge on Panther Mountain Road. And then some of them buried under a lilac tree, which we are in the process of figuring out what kind of lilac can survive the Adirondack winter.”
