Mark Freeland

Mark doing the Conn/Normal mural summer 1988

As many of you may know, Mark Freeland passed away early this morning after a long fight with cancer.
Mark and I were close friends in the late 80's. I was just finishing college (for the 2nd try), and I was, well, pretty green. I decided that I wanted to be the photographer to the stars. That's how we met - I was showing him some shots from an Electroman show, and it snowballed from there.
I saw countless Electroman, Fems and Erectronics shows, as well as "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" (many, many times). And we just hung out a lot. Watched him make art and practice guitar; we talked about everything and nothing.
Had a class called "Words and Music" at Buff State. As our final paper for the semester, the professor wanted us to pick apart the words and music of the artist of our choice, using recordings and sheet music. Thinking that was pretty cold, I asked the prof if I could interview a musician that I knew, and give him a tape of recordings. Mark was on board - I sat with a tape recorder and he went on about everything (though I tried to keep music as the subject). I wrote the paper and handed it in.
I showed up to take the final exam. The professor caught me at the door with my paper in hand. He gave it to me, and said, in effect, that if I have friends like that, I will be able to learn a lot more about the subject from Mark than I would get from a class. He then excused me from the final, telling me that I already had an A.
That is a story that encompasses my friendship with Mark. Yeah, there were some rough times, but I learned more from him than I knew when it was happening. He was a fantastic artist, and he was so encouraging about what I was doing and what I wanted to be.
I didn't know he was sick until a few weeks ago. We had grown apart; only saw each other every once in a while. I knew that he didn't want people to know. I sent him a card a few weeks ago, under the guise of sending him some pictures that I found. I hope that he saw it....
I know I am in the company of many when I write that Buffalo lost a huge creative force today.
If you are familiar with my feelings about death, you'll know that I'm sure he's on a different plane - no more pain. Hangin' with Jimbo, happy. Rest in peace, Mark.


Note: There are many online tributes to Mark. One is Jeff Miers' tribute in Saturday's Buffalo News, and Beth ( who comments frequently on this and the Creativebflo blog) has a great piece on her SwampCrone blog. Please keep us up on anything else you see in the comments!