2009 brought a lot of great things into my life, and one of them was Wendy Spitzer. I first met her when my friend Billy brought her over to Weaver Street. We met outside in the outdoor eating area. Right away, I could tell Wendy was incredibly interesting. Her artistic talent was immediately obvious. Even more than that, she seemed deeply thoughtful and caring at her core.
At the time, Wendy was beginning her solo project, Felix Obelix. She was producing an album and already had several songs recorded. I do not remember exactly how she and Billy met, but I remember Billy talking to me on the side about her. He was instantly smitten and trying to figure out what to do about this huge crush. The situation was complicated because Wendy was in a steampunk band with her longtime boyfriend, Jay. From what Wendy told me, there was a kind of cloud over that part of her life. She described the house she and Jay lived in as very dark and relatively remote, and it sounded like they were good people but simply not compatible.
Wendy and I became instant friends. Something clicked. We spent a lot of time together, and it was fascinating to see the story unfolding from two angles. Billy fell hard right away. Wendy, in her own way, came online over time and told me about the crush she was starting to develop on Billy.
One of the most “Wendy” stories is something she told me about after she hung out with Billy one time. She was so excited and energized afterward that she made a construction-paper art piece and went out and stapled it to a telephone pole. I never saw what it looked like, but the gesture captures her perfectly: creative, thoughtful, impulsively artistic, and drawn to making public art that lives in shared space.
Over the years, Wendy has done so many interesting projects, and one of the striking things is how often she brings in the public, or her specific friend group, to make them collaborative. One was her Friendship Project, which involved portraits of her and also me, Jonathan, Carol, Alexia, Josh, and Billy. It also included interviews that turned into a video and sound collage. I have a lot of her mixed-media pieces. Some of the most interesting things on my wall are by her.
During the 2020 coronavirus period, she also did a project called Walk and Chat. Since friends were not really hanging out normally, she set up recurring phone calls every so often. I loved those calls with her because we could talk about such wide-ranging topics. That is something I genuinely miss. In a strange way, I also miss the parts of that era that brought out the best in people.
Somewhere around 2010 or 2011, I got Wendy a job with me and Jonathan at the Giddings Lab at UNC. I started there first, and then I convinced the PI, Morgan Giddings, to hire Jonathan and Wendy too. I loved that job, and it was even better having two of my best friends working alongside me. Wendy became an editor of our papers, and what really stood out was her thoroughness and the way she made insightful comments about everything we wrote. That job ended up transforming her career. She has remained an editor of scientific works and grants ever since.
We even collaborated on two of my papers: one on Peppy software and another on the tandem mass spectrometry peptide alignment scoring algorithm that drives Peppy. Both papers were much better because of her, and I believe she is listed as a co-author.
It has also been a joy to see Wendy evolve over the years. She has kept her best qualities, but she has also become more comfortable in social situations, and it is genuinely delightful to witness.
One thing I have learned about friendship, especially with Wendy, is that starting a project together is one of the best ways to get to know someone. Early on, we made a stop-motion animation for one of her album videos, the song “Heart Monitor.” We animated dolls moving around on a table, and it was one of those experiences where you collaborate, learn each other’s rhythms, and end up with a finished creative product.
For that video, we also took a few hikes around Durham to shoot footage. I still remember Duke Forest vividly, and we filmed around the Geer Street area too, back when it was relatively abandoned. The building that eventually became Geer Street Garden was abandoned then, and we shot scenes around it where Wendy was dancing around like some kind of magician. Billy had the idea of her holding a wand that could transform things, and that concept was entirely his.
That song and video are still among my favorite creative works of all time. A lot of the video’s impact also came from Billy’s contribution. He was trying to win Wendy over, so he poured himself into her projects. He added theremin sounds to some of her songs, and he edited the video for “Heart Monitor,” spending a ton of time on it. He worked in archive footage of women dancing, heart monitors, and health videos, and his editing really brought the whole thing together.
Looking back, all that collaboration between the three of us created a strong foundation. Even when we are in different cities now, I still feel that solid connection.
I am also deeply grateful to Wendy and Billy for showing up for me when Meredith and I were separating. We tried an approach called nesting, where we shared the same house but alternated days being away. On the days I was away, Wendy and Billy let me stay at their house, and I appreciated that more than I can say.
Now my goal, in the near term and the long term, is to rekindle those collaborations, deepen our bonds, spend more time together, and have more conversations. I feel that, to a large degree, it is on me that some of these friendships have not been tended as much over the years, and I want to tend them more. I think the best place to start is simply spending quality time together. I would also love to build toward a creative collaboration again, because making something together has real power and creates a special kind of bond.