Mrs Darlene R. Saladino-Blair

Darlene Saladino-Blair, passed away peacefully on Sunday 21 August 2022 at the age of 84, after a decade-long decline due to Alzheimer’s disease. She is survived by her two sisters, Dorothy Hamilton (Steve) and Marlea Spaude, and by her four children, Tony Saladino (Nancy), Brett Saladino (Doug Johnson), Rama Blair (Isabel Pichardo), and Stephen Blair (Zoe), a dozen grandchildren, and two great grandchildren. Dar was born in Menominee MI to Harold and Dorothy Walker and grew up in Marinette WI. After finishing high school in Marinette in 1956, she attended Carthage College, where she met her first husband Jim Saladino. Together they helped rebuild the Municipal Opera in Springfield IL and produce the first few seasons of plays there. Following their divorce in 1969, Dar completed a fine art degree at UWGB, and then wove a colorful web of friendships, art, adventures and memories through Green Bay, Appleton, and DePere WI, Denver CO, Dayton OH, Union City OH/IN, and Pennsylvania. She taught art at Bay Port High School in Suamico WI, was a substitute teacher in Denver, and taught private classes in her home. At the Ghetto’s Palace in Dayton, she studied yoga and eastern religions. In Ashland PA, she co-owned The Artist’s Workshop with Greyson Blair, providing custom framing, sign painting, murals and consignment art, and organized ArtStreet, a public art and music fair. In 1982, she returned to the Green Bay area permanently (except for a couple years in Iola WI) and continued to welcome opportunities to paint signs and murals or create set designs or costumes for local community theater groups and churches. She also taught art at Abbot Pennings High School and worked as a Certified Nursing Assistant at St Vincent’s Hospital, art director at Moon Beach Camp, housekeeper and caregiver, and volunteered at Heritage Hill State Park. Those who knew Dar will remember her as a free spirit with a powerful wanderlust, a love of learning and reading, a distrust of authority, and a compulsion to help everyone around her (sometimes to her own detriment). Although her life was often difficult, she was usually upbeat and often silly. If you visited her home, you might get invited to help bake cookies, read books aloud, paint the front porch, make art, or have a dance party in the kitchen. You could always be assured there would be lots of laughter and you would leave with a better outlook on life. Everywhere she went in the world, she would connect with other people, talking and joking with shopkeepers, acquaintances and strangers, dispensing philosophical advice, playful quips, hugs and “old hippie” handclasps. When she bought her first house on the near east side of Green Bay in 2005, she immediately introduced herself to her neighbors, and relished the personal connections she made with them, often offering to help them with projects or inviting them to visit for conversation over tea or painting. In addition to working and making art, Dar loved getting her hands in the dirt, digging and transplanting flowers and other plants (including some she brought home from the woods), and she rearranged these outdoor plantings almost as often as she rearranged the furniture in her house. She also enjoyed scrubbing things, and anything she could not scrub clean would get a fresh coat of paint (usually white enamel). When arriving at Dar’s house, it was always a good idea to look for ‘wet paint’ signs before touching anything. And although she was always trying to “get organized”, she never managed to do so. In the last half of her life her penchant increased for collecting ideas for things to paint someday, articles she wanted to send to someone, letters she had received, poems or stories she had written, quotes or ideas from books or NPR, old books, thrift store bargains and found “treasures” that she just knew someone would be able to use, if only for a costume or art project. Her spiritual beliefs were woven from extensive reading and studying of eastern philosophy and religion, the teachings of the UU church, and her Lutheran roots. In her later years, she was a member of Union Congregational Church. She believed that whether you put your trust in the Creator or Jesus or the Universe, they would provide for you. She believed that all people are worthy of love and kindness, and when you care for others, the love and kindness you give will return to you magnified. She believed that we were formed of the same molecules and energy as the stars, the oceans, the mountains, and the forests. She believed in the Oneness of life, and in the persistence of soul and life force and connections, even after the passing of the body. Gathering of family and friends will be held from 12:00 P.M. to 2:00 P.M. on Friday, May 26, 2023 at Sepia Chapel, 3562 Finger Road.

Mrs Darlene R. Saladino-Blair

August 9, 1938 - August 21, 2022