In Memory of Fletcher Starbuck

Former Austinite Fletcher Starbuck - photographer, traveler, voracious reader, master woodworker, good friend, and potter extraordinaire - died on Sunday, January 6, 2008, in Ft. Bragg, California. All of us who knew him are heartbroken.

Fletcher had been diagnosed about a month ago with what was thought to be a brain tumor. It was finally determined that he had a massive infection that had gone to his brain, probably from some bad dental work. Several cultures were taken to try to pin down what the infection was. The doctors thought they had it figured out, but they didn't. He took a turn for the worse on Sunday and died on the way to the hospital.

Fletcher lived in Austin for many years. I first met him in 1984 or 1985 when he took a pottery class from me. I like to think I taught him something about pottery, but the pupil soon surpassed the teacher. He was quick to learn, very quick to seek out new throwing techniques and glazes, and even quicker at implementing them into his style of hand-thrown stoneware and porcelain.

Most of us potters would get our copy of the newest Ceramics Monthly, read it, and throw it on a stack on the shelf to gather dust. Fletcher would immediately cut out what interested him and file it away under the proper heading, so he could find it when he needed it. I so envied that particular obsessiveness, and I admired him for it. We became friends, built and shared a 24-cubic-foot gas kiln, and did a Christmas show at my home in Hyde Park for 10 years running, with Don Bebout and the last few years of it with Dennis Trombatore, too.

Fletcher Starbuck at Michael Simon Workshop

Fletcher’s pots only got better and lighter. He’d hand me a large vase out of the kiln, and it would practically float away. If you own a carved rim bowl or face jug by Fletcher, you have a treasure.

I’m happy for you if you have one of his face jugs, but they gave me the willies up and down my spine. Fletcher would often load the kiln for the two of us, and I’d fire it. I usually finished the firings late at night. Fletcher would load the kiln, place the cones just right for me and too often he’d place a face jug right behind the cones in front of the peephole. Pitch dark in the backyard except for the glow of the kiln, late, late, at night I’d take out the peep plug, and there would be this glowing orangey-red, cross-eyed, crooked-nosed, snaggle-toothed face leering at me. It would freak me out every time. When I’d tell him, Fletcher would just smile his crooked smile, behind that marvelous droopy mustache of his, and promise not to place the jugs in that spot again. I always believed him until I’d open the peep plug the next time - wicked, wicked sense of humor, Fletcher.

We started a Friday night potluck group centered around good food and the television program The X-Files. Fletcher and his wife Kim often hosted. Inevitably, we’d all get our plates filled (usually something with a red sauce), pour some red wine, and just barely sit down, when something bloody nasty scary awful would explode out of a body on the show just as we took our first bites. We’d all roar and keep eating, of course.

After the show we’d be sitting around talking, maybe 8 or 10 of us. Suddenly, Fletcher would throw his crumbled up napkin at someone - so quickly you didn’t know where it came from, except that we all knew it was Fletcher who always started it. A room full of adults, and we’d all start whipping this napkin around the room at each other, everyone laughing and being silly like a bunch of five-year-olds.

Just after the movie Fargo had come out on video, Fletcher and I were outin my backyard glazing pots and talking. I told him how much I like the movie, despite the violence. The next week he showed up with the collector’s edition of Fargo that included a limited edition snow globe depicting the scene where the bad guy is trying to grind up his accomplice in the wood chipper. This little bloody foot is sticking up out of the tiny wood chipper, and a little Marge Gunderson figure is pointing a gun at him. When you shook it up, it had swirling red and white snowflakes. It was so incredibly gross and funny, and it was such a Fletcher gift.

Fletcher and Kim moved to California, and we kept in touch sporadically. They are both the kind of people, though, who’ve had a major influence on my life. Despite time and distance I have always considered them good friends. I want to say that Fletcher . . . he was one of the finest people I’ve had the pleasure of calling friend, and it’s simply wrong that he’s gone already. It’s simply wrong, and I can’t and just won’t believe it . . . yet . . . and maybe not for a long time.

For those who knew him, wherever you are, make a nice marinara and pasta dish, pour yourselves a glass of red wine, pop in an old X-files tape, and raise a toast to Fletcher Starbuck. When you're finished, crumble up your napkin and...well, you know what to do.