Larry Selman
December 11, 1938 – September 20, 2021
“Make Every Day Count”
Our beloved husband, father, brother, colleague, and best friend, slipped away peacefully at his home in Santa Cruz, California, surrounded by his family. For many months, Larry held insatiably to life, because he simply loved living—on every level. Recently he was busy with many projects—adding more solar power to the house, taking magnificent photographs, practicing the viola da gamba, studying music theory, redesigning our front yard with beautiful succulent plants, and playing Pokémon with the grandkids and other aficionados of the game. Honestly, we all thought we would have more time together.
The last few months, this has been his daily mantra: “Make every day count.” And we did. His three-year journey with pancreatic cancer changed everything. We made every moment count. During his last few days, he was telling everyone, “There are only two things that matter: Having work that you love, and finding the right partner.” He said how lucky he was to have found both.
Larry is survived by Marti Selman, his devoted wife of 32 years; son Matthew David (Matisse) Selman, daughter-in-law Daniela Selman, grandsons Mason Lawrence Selman and Dashiell Jean Selman; son Noah Jordan Selman, daughter-in-law Sarah Selman, grandchildren Isaiah Clive Overson, Jacqueline Ruby Overson, and Khiaan J. Selman; sister Kay Ellen (Kelly) Selman, brother-in-law Robin Wallace, of Gainesville, Florida; first wife Linda Pope of Aptos; and a host of extended family and friends who will carry him in their hearts forever.
Born in Cleveland, Ohio to Evelyn and Morton Selman, Larry attended public schools in Cleveland Heights and earned a Bachelor’s degree at Kenyon College, after which he spent a year abroad studying chemistry at University College, London. He then went on to earn a Master’s degree and PhD in organic chemistry at Yale University. After a brief career in teaching, Larry discovered by chance what would become his career for the next four decades.
In the late 1960s, Larry found himself at a personal crossroads. With his PhD in organic chemistry (thanks to the persistence of his dedicated mother, Evy), he was torn between the prospect of an academic career, and his true passion—playing Renaissance and Baroque music. Larry felt he needed to make a choice. One day, a friend in the early music world introduced him to one of his collections: glass paperweights. Larry was immediately enthralled by these small objets d’art and began buying and selling them as a hobby, which in time evolved into a career.
During the Renaissance, skills and talents from many fields of expertise were combined into lives of extraordinary creativity. Eventually, Larry solved his career dilemma by choosing “all of the above,” following the path of innovators from the Renaissance era, whose hauntingly beautiful, complex music had smitten him. In other words, why not continue to be a scholar of many things, play early music, and…. deal in collectible glass paperweights!
Larry will be remembered by collectors around the world for his work in the field of fine glass paperweights, where he devoted himself to education about the art form and to fostering emerging artists who created these small treasures. In 1969, he founded L. H. Selman, Ltd. which began as a kitchen-table mail-order business with his first wife, Linda Pope, who co-authored his first book, Paperweights for Collectors. Through the publication of high-quality brochures, special photographic techniques and advertising, participation in antique shows, and collectors’ meetings and festivals, L. H. Selman, Ltd. became the world’s premier purveyor of both antique and contemporary glass paperweights. For years, Larry regularly traveled to London auctions to bid for clients or to purchase rarities for his collectors. He wrote numerous definitive books about the art form, and published many other titles under his publishing house, Paperweight Press.
Throughout his career as an art dealer, Larry drew on his lifelong skills as a photographer, figuring out the best ways to photograph glass. (He had created a dark room in his childhood home in Cleveland when he was fifteen). The exceptional quality of his photos set the standard among the paperweight world. Always the innovator, Larry was the first paperweight dealer to have a website. This was in the early days of the internet, when building a website required months of laborious and unforgiving attention to detail. Larry actually wrote the computer code himself, in the late hours on his home computer. He was the first paperweight dealer to establish an online auction. On two occasions, these auctions held the world record for the highest price realized for a rare antique glass paperweight.
Eventually the mail order / auction business evolved into a beautiful glass gallery in downtown Santa Cruz. The shop became a mecca for paperweight collectors from around the world who came to attend many festivals and other paperweight-related events which were hosted here. He fostered a collaborative work environment where his small staff could actively participate, and enjoy their work as much as he did.
In 2009, Larry decided that after 40 years it was time to “pass the torch” of the business to someone else.
L. H. Selman, Ltd. was purchased by the family of Wes Clark, a long-time collector, who moved the business to the Fine Arts Building on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, where it resides and continues to thrive.
Larry was a devoted father who adored his family. In 1976, son Matthew (Matisse) was born, followed by son Noah in 1978. Throughout his career as a businessman, he always found time to be 100% present for his children, constructing electronic projects at the dining room table, selling (hmm.. mostly buying) at the local flea market, having sushi-making dinners at home and lifelong daily conversations about their many diverse interests and activities.
After moving to Santa Cruz in the early 1970s, Larry continued to play Renaissance and Medieval music with friends. He played with the Antiquarian Funks, the Santa Cruz Baroque Festival, and with a small group that called themselves The Byrd Consort, after the composer William Byrd. In 1986, while serving on the board of directors for the Santa Cruz Baroque Festival, Larry met Marti Edwards, who shared his passion for early music and his interest in personal computers. They married in 1989, and Marti soon joined him in the business, where she worked as an active partner for the next twenty years.
One of Larry’s lifelong interests was the field of communications. He found it thrilling that he could send out a catalog from Santa Cruz, California and that people from all over the world would respond. Watching the automated equipment he had acquired for mailing paperweight catalogs sit idle between mailings, he founded Complete Mailing Service, another entity to help other businesses communicate with their clients. That business still thrives in Santa Cruz under its new owner and name: Complete Mailing and Printing.
That same passion for communication took him into the world of amateur radio and later, into his lifelong captivation by the internet. In 1988, Larry taught himself Morse Code and became an amateur radio operator, under the call sign AA6MV. He and Marti (N6ULI) took trips to several remote islands for “DX-peditions” where they enjoyed talking over short-wave radio to other “hams” around the world. They found they shared many other interests as well: organic gardening, beekeeping, wine-making, the fiber arts (weaving, knitting, spinning, dying fibers with natural pigments), birding, travel, photography, and meeting new friends in each new field they pursued. Larry and Marti were inseparable, doing everything together as a couple, each embracing the other’s interests and learning everything they could together.
In the early 1990s, they bought some raw land at the top of Summit Road in Santa Cruz County which they developed slowly on weekends. They set up solar electricity and established Ridgecrest Organic Farm where they planted raspberries, blueberries, and figs. Eventually, they installed a couple of tiny cabins where they retreated for many happy hours, enjoying the tranquility of the mountains and majestic views of the Pacific and the Morgan Hill valley.
In the early 2000s, Larry’s brother-in-law, Robin Wallace, introduced him to the world of birding. As a result, Larry became totally immersed in the world of bird photography, taking workshops with well-known American bird photographers, and traveling with Marti to many places across the United States to photograph birds in their natural settings. Long airplane flights offered an opportunity for studying books on birds of North America. He spent many hours photographing hummingbirds at the Arboretum at UC Santa Cruz, where the family is placing a bench in his memory at the newly planted succulent garden in the South Africa section.
Larry developed a keen “eye” for seeing and capturing—not just birds, but also people, plants, and abstract patterns. Eventually, Larry got into black and white street photography and spent many hours walking the streets of Santa Cruz, Bisbee, Chicago, and Santa Fe capturing whatever caught his well-developed eye. His work was sold in galleries in California, Arizona, and New Mexico.
In 2007 while on a birding vacation to southern Arizona, Larry and Marti happened upon a small adobe cottage that was for sale in the desert scrub outside the magical high-desert town of Bisbee. They fell in love with it and bought it as it was, with off-the-grid solar power and rain water collection, and beautifully furnished with Mexican tile and craftsman furniture. The Bisbee cottage and southeast Arizona became a wonderful second home where, after retiring from the paperweight business, they spent about half their time.
To view some of Larry’s amazing photos, visit
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mostlybirds/
https://flickriver.com/photos/lselman/
In 2015, Larry returned to his old passion for playing early music. He bought new gut strings and tuned up his treble viol, which had been set aside during his busy years in the paperweight business. He joined the Viola da Gamba Society of America, which set him off on another adventure of meeting new and reconnecting with long-lost musician friends from Northern California and Arizona. Before the pandemic, he and Marti attended every local chamber music concert they could. They also traveled out of state for chamber music performances, and attended many viola da gamba workshops in California and Arizona. Larry often remarked that there is nothing more satisfying than playing music with friends.
Larry’s ability to single-mindedly focus on one of his many interests will be remembered and appreciated by all who knew him. A true Renaissance Man, once he became passionate about a subject, he became laser-focused on learning everything he could. Other interests took a back seat while he ramped up his knowledge on a new subject. This singularity of purpose drove him to try to be the best at anything he undertook. Back in the 80s, he quickly attained the highest level license in amateur radio; recently he reached Level 45 on Pokémon—one of the highest levels achievable in the game.
Larry’s mind was never idle. When Marti took piano lessons or week-long cooking classes, there was always something to photograph or a Google search about something that piqued his curiosity. His latest project followed the same pattern: the decision to re-design the front yard with draught-tolerant plants resulted in a new stack of books to devour about succulents.
Larry made this photo to show some of his many playful interests: Music, weaving, photography.
During his last few weeks, he enjoyed surfing the internet for information about Fibonacci sequences in nature, and watching with pleasure the app on his iPhone which shows in real time how much solar power our panels are collecting and giving back to the grid. He also enjoyed simple pleasures, such as going for rides around Santa Cruz to collect Pokémon points, or just sitting with a take-out coffee while we charged our electric car.
We will always treasure Larry’s keen curiosity in just about anything and everything he encountered, his brilliant analytic ability, his many passionate interests, his generosity, his zest for life, and his quiet sense of humor, which was with him until the end. But beyond all of these gifts, his kindness and caring for others stands out like a warm embrace which enveloped and transformed everyone who knew him.
We have all learned so much from Larry—gifts that we will cherish the rest of our lives and pass on to others. Ours has been a rich, full, and beautiful life, well lived, including many lifelong friendships we have made along the way. We have never stopped being grateful for our blessings and especially for each other.
We will not be having any service at this time, but we are asking anyone who would like to celebrate Larry to go out and do something special in his honor. Please help us celebrate our Renaissance Man by doing something you love and feel passionate about—and making every moment count. We got to spend a part of our lives with Larry Selman—we are the luckiest people in the world.
Messages can be sent to the family via
Larry’s black and white street photography of street musicians was made into a 10 minute video. The link below will take you to the video:.
This second link below is to a 5-minute slide show Marti made of Larry playing music throughout his life (except for 30 years while he ran L.H. Selman Ltd).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myusKMFEpUc