Andy Van Assche and Marilyn Andrews built a home, raised fruits and vegetables, made music, worked with clay, and traveled to art shows, among many other pursuits.
The couple met when Van Assche was in his late teens and Andrews in her late 20s, and spent nearly 50 years in creative and personal collaboration. Andrews died at age 76 in January 2019, 16 months after learning she had glioblastoma, an incurable brain cancer.
The Plainfield home the couple built in 1988 remains filled with their artwork. Sculptures dot the landscape around their property.
Members of the public can view dozens of Andrews’ pieces at the Salmon Falls Gallery in Shelburne Falls. A retrospective exhibit, “Marilyn Andrews: A Life’s Work in Clay,” is open every day from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Oct. 31, with a reception Saturday, Oct. 2 from 2-4 p.m.
Of their early years, Van Assche said: “It was difficult. We had a lot of tension related to our dissatisfaction with societal gender roles. But we learned to be patient with each other and to really listen.”
He described Andrews’ propensity to do “what’s often considered men’s work. Marilyn wired our house, repaired our plumbing and kilns, changed the oil in our cars, mowed the grass.”
He noted that Andrews “didn’t present herself in ways that are considered traditionally attractive for females. Her wardrobe consisted mainly of men’s clothes she bought at thrift stores. She noticed that men’s clothes were better made and lasted longer.”
After living together for 30 years, Andrews and Van Assche got married in 2001 “for health insurance reasons,” he said. “We’d avoided legal marriage because not everyone we knew had the right to marry. Fortunately, that’s changed.”
To younger friends who ask Van Assche for tips on lasting love, he says: “Be best friends. And know that it takes a lot of work.”
The couple met in 1971 at the Cooperative Free School in Dundee, Illinois, an hour’s drive from Chicago.
“I started college thinking I’d become a teacher, but was uncomfortable with what I witnessed in public education,” said Van Assche. “When I read about the Summerhill School in England, as well as the work of John Holt, I knew there had to be a better way.”
The Summerhill School is known as the original alternative “free” school. John Holt, a proponent of homeschooling — as well as the unschooling approach — was a pioneer in youth rights theory.
Andrews helped start the cooperative free school in the basement of a Unitarian Church so her two young children would have positive alternatives to mainstream education.
“It was a very conservative area,” said Van Assche. “Members of a right-wing militia group set fire to the church.”
School founders purchased 10 acres on which to rebuild and start a farm. “Some of us lived on site, and others lived nearby,” said Van Assche. “Marilyn, her kids, and I lived in the school’s three-story house, along with several other students and staff members. There was a large garden, a stream, and a rope swing. It was a wonderful place for people of all ages to learn.”
The couple stayed at the school for 12 years. “We decided to move after the entire area became a bedroom community of Chicago,” said Van Assche. ”The development was unbelievable.”
Hearing that Franklin County was fairly progressive and had a nascent food co-operative, Andrews and Van Assche moved to Western Massachusetts in 1983, settling at first into communal housing in Greenfield with the hopes of finding rural land where the two of them could build a home, work, and live. They found that in Plainfield, in neighboring Hampshire County.
“We bought our 14-acre parcel in 1986, figuring that the chances Plainfield would become lined with strip malls were slim,” said Van Assche.
They cleared two acres and designed and built a super-insulated, passive solar home. The ground floor contains an art studio; second-floor living space includes two modest bedrooms, a small bathroom with a clawfoot tub, and an open area with living room, dining room, and kitchen.
“The house is wood-heated,” said Van Assche, “but uses less than one cord per year because the walls are 12 inches thick and the ceilings have 16 inches of insulation. That, and the passive solar, makes the house easy to heat.”
Van Assche produces more electricity than he uses. “When I get my so-called bill, the number represents how much the company owes me, not the other way around. I love that.”
The lush garden represents a great deal of work.
“When we got here in the late 1980s, the soil was dead — terribly acidic, with no worms. We added loads of compost and mulch, and it paid off,” he said.
The garden produces winter and summer squash, tomatoes, melons, beans, asparagus, carrots, kale, broccoli, onions, garlic, leeks, strawberries, peppers and peas. “No potatoes, though,” said Van Assche. “The voles just eat them all, leaving skins behind.”
Fruit trees and bushes include apples, pears, blueberries, and raspberries.
Andrews and Van Assche canned tomatoes, peaches, and pears, and stored onions, garlic, and squashes. He continues the practice: a garden cart loaded with onions drying in his “car house” bears testimony to his ongoing efforts.
“We did art with the kids at the school in Illinois, and we had a friend who owned a kiln,” said Van Assche. “We gradually taught ourselves the medium of working with clay.”
The couple gravitated to hand-built stoneware, working without a potter’s wheel. “We found the wheel limited us to symmetrical work,” said Van Assche. “We each developed unique styles, learning from books and from friends.” He added, “If you don’t take lessons, you don’t end up copying your teacher.”
The two artists had very different styles. “Marilyn could draw figuratively, something I never got into,” he said. “I enjoy lines, balance, and geometric shapes. We admired each other’s work, and enjoyed doing shows together.”
The couple traveled to distinguished craft shows and exhibitions throughout the country, including Denver, St. Louis, and Kansas City. “We’d drive through the night, taking shifts sleeping. We loved prepping for shows, seeing longtime customers, and meeting new people.”
In their home studio, the pair shared a 20-foot table, “each making our own clay recipes and going about our work.”
The couple had a routine: “After dinner, we’d work for an hour or two in the studio while listening to audiobooks or music. Then we’d come upstairs and play live music together before bedtime.”
Andrews played the violin, Van Assche the guitar; both sang.
“We always had part-time jobs,” said Van Assche, “because we didn’t want to be isolated in the studio, and didn’t want to allow market pressures to overly influence our artwork. Our finances were tight, but we loved the freedom.”
Andrews worked part-time as a CNA (certified nursing assistant) at a Northampton nursing home. She later worked with Quabbin Mediation teaching Nonviolent Communication (NVC), drawing on theories and practices pioneered by the psychologist and author Marshall Rosenberg.
Van Assche delivered interlibrary loans for the Western Mass Regional Library System two days a week for 24 years. “Sadly, that outfit no longer exists,” he said. “It was subcontracted in a cutthroat capitalist model. Wages fell from $16 to $10 an hour, and many benefits were canceled. It was part of a national phenomenon of privatization and reducing wages and benefits.”
After losing his library job, Van Assche received unemployment assistance for a year. “Then I heard that Real Pickles was hiring. Soon after I started working there, they transitioned to a worker-owned cooperative, which is right up my alley philosophically.”
Making lacto-fermented foods on a large scale at the Greenfield business is hard work, but Van Assche loves it. “At 68, I’m the oldest one there, by far, so I get a lot of ‘old guy’ questions about relationships and life. That pleases me.”
Andrews served in leadership positions, including being the board president of the Franklin Community Co-op, yet questioned standard leadership roles. “She was devoted to participatory democracy, something that’s talked about in progressive circles, but not always practiced,” Van Assche noted.
He added, “Marilyn was a lot of things, but above all she was earnest. She was empathic and introverted, but with a wilder, fanciful side. She was curious, passionate, filled with integrity, and reserved, but also very funny.”
In September 2017, Andrews and Van Assche traveled to Kansas City for an art show. “Marilyn drove while I slept,” he said. “I awoke with a start after she slammed on the brakes. She had a grand mal seizure; she was semi-conscious and couldn’t speak.”
Tests at a Columbus, Ohio hospital revealed a sizable brain tumor. “Marilyn was in the ICU for a couple of days,” he said, “on meds to control seizures. When we got back to Massachusetts, she had surgery. They were able to get about half of the tumor, and then she was put on a trial medication.”
The couple learned that Andrews’ life expectancy was one to two years. “That was hard to accept,” said Van Assche. “But we hung in there together and got another 16 months. I’d never faced anything so difficult. Thank goodness I had support groups, which I still attend.”
They drew on a wide range of healing approaches.
“We took daily walks and shared nutritious food,” he said. “We went to Mass. General in Boston once a week, and she had radiation at Cooley Dickinson [hospital in Northampton].”
Speech therapy helped Andrews regain some linguistic capabilities, and she remained active, even continuing to cut firewood.
Andrews’ last art fair was in August 2018 in Great Barrington. “Marilyn couldn’t speak, but she was very excited to be there, especially when she saw some of her steady customers from New York City.”
Van Assche reflected on their final year. “I’m so glad we had that time,” he said. “Losing one’s life partner to sudden death must be much harder.”
Andrews died at the Fisher Home, a freestanding hospice in Amherst.
“Marilyn never got into the imagery of battling cancer,” she said. “She wanted to live with enjoyment until the end.”
Van Assche played guitar and sang for her at the hospice home.
Now that he lives alone, Van Assche says, “It’s great to have her work around me … her big sculptures and birdbaths, as well as the functional things in the kitchen. Her art is all over the house.”
“She wanted me to be happy. She taught me that if you don’t have joy in your life, find out what you need to do to feel more joyful. I told her that, after she was gone, I’d play music with other people. And I do.”
“Since she died, I’m much less afraid of death,” he said. “Life on this earth is really just like a drop. It’s a mystery. ”
Andrews donated her body to medical research, so Van Assche did not receive her ashes until months later.
“As I carried her ashes up our driveway, I realized we’re part of a much bigger whole. This has always been done — people carrying the remains of their loved ones — and it will always be done.”
Van Assche remains in close touch with Andrews’ two grown children, eight grandchildren, and the three great-grandchildren who’ve been born since she died.
“Some of them will come here in a few weeks to celebrate Marilyn’s life,” he said. “We’d planned a memorial for last year, but we postponed it due to the pandemic.”
The family plans to spread her ashes on the land Andrews tended, harvested from, and loved. “It’s all part of a beautiful cycle,” concluded her life partner.
Eveline MacDougall is the author of “Fiery Hope” and an artist, musician and mom. Readers may send tips and comments to eveline@amandlachorus.org.