There are many people who knew legendary political cartoonist Dwane Powell far better than I did and who are feeling his loss on a more personal and deep level. But I wanted to put words on paper about Dwane anyway, because I believe there are many people out there who are like me – acquaintances and admirers whose world was made brighter by him and who feel its dimming with his way-too-early death.
Moonlighting
I probably met Dwane for the first time as a teenager on one of my visits to the News and Observer to tag along with my brother Mark on photo assignments when he worked at the paper. I’m sure I was awestruck to meet a “real” cartoonist.
A few years later, I graduated from college and took a job working as a reporter at the N&O’s Chapel Hill bureau. I’m sure I crossed paths with Dwane again when I was in the Raleigh newsroom for meetings. After a couple of years at the paper, I quit and moved to Washington, where I wound up working as a magazine editor for a nonprofit called Public Citizen.
People talk about shoestring budgets, but the money we could spend on art and photography made our budget more of a fraction of a shoestring. This was the early 90s, and there was no online world full of inexpensive or free stock photography or illustrations. It was a challenge to find talented people who were willing to do the work for our measly fees, and the fact that the articles were about wonky political and consumer topics didn’t help. Asking people to produce complex photographs or illustrations for very little money was an uphill battle that also made the magazine staff feel guilty. On top of that, it was not exactly a “looker” of a magazine.
Somewhere along the way, I thought about Dwane, knowing he would understand the political and rabble-rousing nature of Public Citizen, and that his sense of humor would bring some welcome comic relief. Looking back, I’m a little shocked that I had the nerve to call and ask him (because of course I would have had to call him back then – we didn’t have the option of asking big favors via the relative comfort of a faceless email).
I don’t remember the details of the conversation, but I do know Dwane was gracious when he heard my pitch and kindly agreed to create a freelance illustration for an upcoming story.
My guess is that he said yes because he loved a creative assignment, even if it was for an unknown magazine that paid badly, and because he wanted to help out the little sister of a former N&O colleague. I could not find any old copies of the magazine with his work in it, but not too long ago, I was looking through a box of mementos from my Washington days and found a fax cover sheet that had probably accompanied some sketches from Dwane: At the bottom was a caricature of Jesse Helms.
Who wouldn’t have treasured that and saved it?
A simple gesture
I kept up with his career over the years, but decades went by before we reconnected via Facebook.
In 2014, he posted on Facebook that he and his lovely wife, Jan, were going on a trip that included Prague, a city I have had much affection for since working there in the mid-90s. I commented on his post with what was probably a fervent recommendation for my favorite restaurant, the Palffy Palac. Dwane later took time to message me and let me know that he and Jan had gone there on their last night in Prague, and that it was still much as I had described it.
He also attached a photo he had taken of the candlelit restaurant, which was a lovely small gesture. I haven’t been back to Prague since I moved back to the US in 1996, and getting a glimpse of this place I’d loved and knowing that Dwane and Jan had trusted my suggestion and had a meal there meant a lot.
I knew that Dwane took beautiful photos, and I told him that if he and Jan ever had time to meet for coffee, I’d love to hear about their trip and see some of his Prague images. I mentioned bringing my daughter along, thinking I could rope her into seeing photos of the place I once lived and give her a chance to meet one of North Carolina’s most famous creative forces.
As it turned out, cancer came into both our families’ lives not long after, and we never did have coffee and talk about Prague. After learning via Facebook that my sister was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer in 2015, he let me know about his own diagnosis.
“My bout with cancer has been a real wake up call,” he wrote, “and I've finally made a serious effort to organize and archive my work from 40 years. The Southern History Collection at UNC is getting it. I went to the paper today to check on the files, and they are still there, dated, catalogued, with all index cards. This will really help the folks at UNC, especially on the digitization process. Onward.”
The treasures of the Interwebs
The remarkable thing about these interactions with Dwane is that none of them took place in person. Each of these encounters made me appreciate his kindness and warmth, but as the news of his death hit me, I realized that it was not any one personal experience I had with Dwane that was resonating so much with me. It was all of the life that Dwane shared with all of his friends and acquaintances via Facebook, that platform that most of us have a love-hate relationship with.
The cartoons that he is best-known for have kept many of us going through many a rough time in North Carolina, including the most recent tough times, but it is the photographs that he took such joy in sharing on Facebook that brought me so much joy in turn.
He had amazing photos and stories of earlier generations of his family, and as a history buff who loves old photos, I was always drawn in by those. And it sounds a bit cliched, but his photos of places transported me to those places; curiosity and attention to detail make for great photos.
But I believe it was Dwane’s photos of his family that were the most striking and memorable to those of us fortunate enough to be in his Facebook community.
There were photos of his daughter Devon and her family, which of course included many loving photos of his grandson Myles.
And while I have never met Dwane’s wife, Jan, you sure can tell how much he loved her through the photos he posted — from classic photos of their dating days right up to his images chronicling their new downtown life and explorations. A couple of years ago , I saw for the first time the little plastic accordion-style photo insert that my father had in his wallet when he died in 1972; I was touched to see that along with photos of me and my siblings, he carried photos of my mom from their courting days in the early 50s. It’s a lovely thing when people continue to cherish and celebrate their own love stories, and Dwane was always celebrating Jan.
Social media is no doubt an odd universe, but the down sides recede when you consider how creative people like Dwane enhance your day-to-day life by taking you along and letting you see what piques their curiosity and brings them joy.
He was a skillful storyteller no matter what medium he chose, and I am so grateful to have been part of his audience.
Onward, Dwane.
~ Carla Atkinson
