by Carolyn Leigh

JoAnn Davis Ridley came to Alamos with her good friend Bill Norton. They stayed at Teri Arnold’s La Puerta Roja Inn – full of art, books on Mexico, plus Teri’s charm and fabulous food. Bill always regretted that he sold his home in Tacubaya after the death of his wife. They didn’t plan to buy, but fell in love with a home down the hill from Teri’s and hired Alamos architect Benny Anaya to renovate it. JoAnn put her forthright energy and intelligence to work in and for Alamos.

Both she and Bill were involved with aviation and journalism. When Bill owned a group of small papers in California, he dropped newspaper bundles at each town from his airplane every morning. JoAnn co-authored High Times: Keeping ‘Em Flying: An Aviation Autobiography (1992). Aviatrix Amelia Earhart was a passion.

Born and raised in Seattle, Washington, JoAnn received a bachelor’s degree in political science from Whitman College. After marriage, the birth of her son, Phillip Patterson, and then her divorce, she first moved to the San Juan Islands in the 1960s, then on to Belvedere, California where she helped launch The Ark Newspaper in 1973, served as its editor and authored a book about the development of the Belvedere-Tiburon Library, First a Dream, A Community Builds a Library.

She returned to the San Juans where she wrote feature articles for The Christian Science Monitor, The Seattle Times, and regional periodicals. Back in California by the early 1980s, she married, lived on a 37-foot sloop docked at Jack London Square and edited the Bay and Delta Yachtsman in Alameda. She moved to Bainbridge Island after a second divorce.

Her third husband, architect John Ridley, designed and built their home in Sea Ranch, California before his death. John’s watercolors hung beside JoAnn’s collection of art by Pacific Northwest artists. Their many collections included Asian ceramics and, of course, shelves of books. JoAnn authored The Barn Book detailing the restoration of Sea Ranch’s original barn.

The National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. commissioned Looking Eulabee Dix: The Illustrated Biography of An American Miniaturist (1997). By this time, JoAnn had also contributed to two books, San Juan Islands Journal and Mary Randlett Landscapes, with images by her long-time friend, photographer Mary Randlett, who documented the land, architecture, art, artists, and writers of the Northwest.

In Alamos, JoAnn naturally wrote another book, An Alamos Handbook: What the Guidebooks Don’t Tell You About Us, a practical and humorous guide to living in Alamos. The last year she and Bill spent together in Alamos, she began research for her next book, Zoë Dusanne, An Art Dealer Who Made a Difference.

Back home in the Pacific Northwest near Shelton, Washington, overlooking an inlet of Puget Sound, surrounded by art, including the hand-coiled pots she had purchased most weeks from shy little girls from the pottery village of Uvalama, Sonora, the bold fish sculpture she commissioned from Alamos artist Tony Estrada and her beloved books, she continued her pursuit of Zoë, the Seattle art dealer she worked with as a young woman.

An African American from the Midwest, Zoë reinvented herself when she opened Seattle’s pioneering Dusanne Gallery in the 1950s exhibiting the contemporary art of Stella, Klee, Kandinsky, Marc, Léger, Arp and others. She helped introduce Northwestern artists including Mark Tobey and Morris Graves to the wider world. Her pioneering promotion of contemporary art was reflected in the Seattle World’s Fair art pavilion. JoAnn remembered her in purple accented with stunning contemporary jewelry set off by her dramatic looks.

From Zoë, JoAnn received her first contemporary art as gifts. She was determined to document Dusanne’s story. Her manuscript was at the publisher’s when JoAnn passed away at home in 2010.

JoAnn kept a piece of her heart in Alamos. Remember her for the handrail on the steps to the Palacio that she and Elizabeth Nuzum lobbied into place. How could the city turn down those two bold and charming women who still attended the Music Festival even as the steps became as challenging as the Alamos mountains? She continued to help with the Scholarship Fund’s publicity even after she sold her Alamos home. For a totally honest and professional opinion, for organizational and promotional skills, for generous encouragement, for a strong cup of coffee, great wine, food, and hospitality – for a few too short years, when she pulled up in her Jag, we were a part of her enthusiastic heart.