This "Meet the Beatles" feature will be very different from any we've done in the past.

Meet Sue Cornell

This is Sue at 15~~~	This is Sue at 30~~~	And this is Sue today~~~

Sue is an artist. She's an artist whose medium is collecting, arranging, and living within a gallery. Her gallery surrounds her entirely. It covers her walls, her ceilings, and her body. She encases herself in beauty. She immerses herself in a magical world of color, image, and music. She lives her art.

Sue was inspired to walk down this "long and winding road" by THE BEATLES . . . who, early on, painted her world in Strawberry Fields, Blackbirds, y'er Blues, White Albums, yellow Submarines, and Silver Hammers. They taught her to think outside the crayon box. This is her story, exactly as she wrote it.

i love the beatles.
i do. i always have.
well, since i was 15.

just a few weeks ago, i was watching paul mc on the grammys. he was rocking out on "i saw her standing there". and I thought, he looks great! he's old, he looks old - but he still rocks (same can be said about me, so no disrespect, paul).

as i was watching, i suddenly had an image of me, 45 years ago, watching a younger paul, singing the same song. i was squishing my way forward, past my brother and sister, on our parents' bed, trying to get the best view of the big black and white t.v.

that year, i bought a ticket to see the beatles, who were appearing at convention hall in philadelphia, on september 2, 1964.  my girlfriend and fellow beatles fan, judy, went with me. we bought our tickets at a ticket agency. i poured out onto the ticket agency counter all the coins i'd brought - nickels, dimes, quarters - change that i'd earned babysitting. 

the price of the ticket was really $4.75, but the ticket agency charged a total of $8.00! that was a fortune for us. it was worth it.

i didn't tell my mom. 

she would never let me go to see the beatles, i knew....i'd already asked, and she said no. 

so........ i bought the ticket anyway, and i kept my ticket a secret - for months!!!!

on the night before the concert, i felt i had to tell my mom, and she was really mad. and said no. again.

my girlfriend judy came over our house that night with her mother, rae. judy's mom explained that my mom's running away to new york city to see frank sinatra in the early 1940's meant the same to her as seeing the beatles meant to me. judy's mom said that my mom would regret it forever if she kept me from seeing a concert i wanted to see so very much. after much crying and begging, my mom said yes. 
judy and i  went and had a great time, except that all the girls around us kept screaming and it was so hard to hear the beatles!

years later, i moved out of my parents' apartment. i was 21.
i didn't tell my mom in advance. 
she was mad. 
she threw out a big box i'd kept in my closet, which i had not yet taken, and was coming back for. 

it contained all of my childhood collections, letters from my english penpals, n.m.e. magazines they'd sent me, many family pictures, and all the beatles stuff i'd collected since 1964, except the lp's and 
john's books, "in his own write" and "a spaniard in the works" (i had already taken them).  i had every beatles single, with carefully preserved covers, 4 scrapbooks filled with every article and photo 
about the beatles, all my beatles english fanclub things, like the script for "a hard day's night", all the flexi-discs of the christmas messages, many pins, and beatles photo magazines..........

it was all gone...........
i thought.

then in 1995, as my son and i got ready to move, i was sorting through some old papers and books. i found a letter from my friend judy. looking in the envelope, i saw 2 little pieces of paper. they were ticket stubs. one was purple.

it was my stub from the feb. 1966 bob dylan concert, where he'd played acoustic for the first set, then came out for the 2nd set with the band (they were still called the hawks then) and rocked. 

the other ticket stub was white......it was my ticket stub from the beatles concert i'd seen, in 1964. this little white ticket stub is now one of my prized possessions, and both stubs are in a frame next to my bed, along with pictures of my family. so i didn't lose it all.

Perhaps this was the beginning of Sue's passion for collecting . . . she goes on to say. . .

not long after that, i found the 4-portrait photo inserts that came with the "white album"  at a flea market. as kids, we put them up on our walls as soon as we opened the l.p. so i had  lost mine over the years. the ones i found were in perfect shape. it was a great thrill for me to find the portraits..... so i have them again.....they are up on a wall away from  the light, in plastic this time.

Soon I also discovered a framed poster of "help" on a wall at a thrift store. it was $20. i don't know how rare it is, but i love it. here you can see part of that framed picture and below it, a statue of 
krishna right under george's picture......... of course!

over the years i have collected many more beatles records, mostly john's. 

a few years ago, i gave my beatles l.p.'s to my son. then, i took them back. he's fine with that. he understands. 

i have all of john's albums, and john and yoko's singles, too, with their covers. i have john and yoko's rolling stone magazine covers, some picture records, and many, many, many books about the beatles and john in particular. i cherish them all. 

my son will get them all and i hope he keeps a few things, particularly the ticket stub. 

i still hunt for records. i go to thrift stores and flea markets when i can. it's great fun. and i have found some great beatles stuff there.

last year, i met pete best and shook his hand. he autographed a poster for me. i also met the quarrymen that night (those that are still touring) and shook their hands. they autographed the book about the 
quarrymen i'd brought with me to the show.

and just a few weeks ago, i was very lucky to see paul and ringo in the benefit for the david lynch foundation in nyc on april 4th.  here's a photo of me at the entrance to radio city. what a night!

(i did take my son to see paul in the early 1980's. my son was very young, and got very frightened at the fireworks that went off when paul did his first song, "live and let die". my son cried so much and really wanted to go home, so we went home...........during the first song.  after we got all the way home, he said he felt fine and could we go back now?)

when i am gone, my son has instructions to play two songs at my funeral. they are "strawberry fields" and "let it be." they are my favorite beatles songs. he has promised to put, along with pictures of 
him and my family, a picture of the beatles, next to me.

©2001 Sue Cornell - all rights reserved.

a year or two ago, i had my parents' faces tattooed on my wrist. on the back of my wrist are the four beatles faces. i thought quite a bit about what beatles era  i wanted to depict. i settled on jan-feb. 1967, 
when they were doing the promo films for "strawberry fields" and "penny lane". 

they have their sgt. pepper mustaches. to me, this is my favorite beatles era and image of them.

the beatles loved art. John and paul were both artists. george found art in his gardens. ringo collected artistic photographs and cards. All they did and thought and said was artistic. I hope that my collection of beautiful, creative, and imaginative things pays honor to them for all they have given to me.

this is who i am. i'm sue cornell, and i live in a world of where the unusual is the usual, where fantasy meets reality, where four boys from liverpool can become superstars. anything is possible in my world . . . and i hope in yours.