Frates runs a gauntlet of friends

LACONIA — When Larry Frates entered the front door of the Belknap Mill on Wednesday evening, he was planning to do a little work as its artist-in-residence. 

A lot of his friends had other ideas.

When the door opened, Frates was surprised by an arch of ski poles, snow shovels and medieval weapons, leading to a gauntlet of well over 100 friends, neighbors, and a variety of admirers, who raised their voices in a song familiar to him, ending in "Larry, Larry."

Born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Frates and wife Joan moved to Laconia some 50 years ago and, over those years, became what friend Dorothy Duffy called “the spirit of this community.”

All adjourned to the third floor of the historic mill building where a spread of food awaited.

“These all are Larry’s favorite foods,” explained mill Program Director Tara Shore. “This is Larry’s night.”

The food was perhaps as eclectic as Frates himself. Celebrants dined on everything from pulled pork to Maggie Leary’s homemade bread pudding.

 “I wouldn’t make it for just anyone,” said Leary. “Everybody here loves Larry.”

Frates is a Fulbright Scholar who has spent 50 years painting in a variety of media while serving as an adjunct fine arts faculty member at several schools, including UMass-Amherst and Southern New Hampshire University, and public schools in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

Art is just one of the talents for which Frates is known. He is also a magician, caricaturist, theater director, mentor, neighbor, friend and creator of participatory exercises with Laconia residents.

Laconia resident Pat Kelly served as master of ceremonies for the evening and used the word “eloquent” to describe his friend. 

Joan Frates took the mic and detailed some of her 47 years of marriage to Larry, telling of their first meeting at a high school theatre group. “My mother referred to him as, ‘That cute little boy,’” she remembered. “The rest is history.”

Bill Tatro said Frates is “the type of guy who will have an idea, pick it up and run with it. Larry can do a job and have fun at the same time,” Tatro said. “He enriched my life.” 

Next up was friend Jeanne Breton who compared Frates to a Henry David Thoreau quote: “You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find eternity on each moment.”

“He is always reinventing himself,” she said. “With him, the glass neither full nor empty — it is always refillable.”

Several people talked about Frates’ more offbeat projects, like his backyard theaters and parades with a variety of costumes and characters, many of which gave shy people a chance to break out. 

There were smiles and jokes throughout the evening, but tears of joy and pride were also shed when descriptions were given of Frates bringing out the best in people.

Nine-year-old Jasmine Kapplain used to visit Frates at the age of 6. When she was bored at her mother’s shop, she would cross the street to Frates’.

“He was fun,” said the Pleasant Street School fourth-grader.

That was a word almost everyone used to describe Frates, and the one he used to describe the evening itself.

Some of Larry Frates’ works will be on display at the Riverside Gallery, located on the first floor of the Belknap Mill, for the month of August.