Ippy Patterson             Drawing 

Okay, I have to admit it.  Time flies.  It swoops around my head and passes by before I can catch it.  Of course, I think about you every single day...but, time flies by.  So I thought it might be time to just admit my weakness, one more time, and hope that this will make it possible to move on, forward, to a way of being that is more connected.  I am sorry I have been so silent. But here is what I have been up to:

1. Work
2. More Work
3. Even More Work.

Meetings and events and dinners and driving from one place to another, all to meet and greet and make plans and schemes.  All to raise money.  We are approaching the end of the fiscal year, and as everyone knows who works in advancement (a.k.a. development), the fourth quarter is always the most stressful. Surpluses are rare and deficits loom. So I spend so much of my time dreaming the best dream, making calls, and getting out to see people.  You have to be an optimist to work in development.  You have to believe in people and their fundamental generosity or the last three months of the fiscal year will overwhelm you.  And I suppose that you must also have a keen memory. One story must prompt the recall of another...making connections is key.

And the other day I thought of you - wished you were there to meet Ippy Patterson and see her home with me.  For years, Ippy was an illustrator for The New York Times Garden pages.  She draws.  She draws like a dream.  Careful, thoughtful renderings of plants, seed pods, flowers, leaves, cocoons.  All drawn to actual scale, with the tenderest line.  The work is astounding. Along side these natural drawings are nude studies and tempestuous, curious illustrations for a book about her childhood.  There are monsters under the bed in these drawings, and strange creatures lurking near images of her mother.  And then, back to nature, back to these intensely personal renderings of the world around her. She showed us her studio (to die for) and her home  (impressive) and made a soft focaccia with sweetened nuts and butter.

You would have loved it.

She and her husband opened their home for a tour of Ackland Members and in the course of the morning, she mentioned that years ago, they lived in Connecticut, in a house that had been owned by Edward Steichen.  Ah, see...this is the moment when I thought of you.  I suddenly remembered the story Dad told about going to an estate sale at that house, and purchasing a lamp housing from Steichen's darkroom. (Do you remember it?)  We have it now.  He gave it to Kirsten one Christmas, I think, as a kind of peace offering once he had to admit that this life was not a phase I would grow out of, but just a life. It hangs in Kirsten's darkroom. I have always loved Steichen's images of the Flat Iron building in New York.  Even now, when I walk past it on business trips, I feel as though I see this image - not the building itself, but the image of it more than 100 years ago.

Ippy and I had to admit that we have been circling near each other for a long time - and the privilege to finally meet - well, I think it is all mine.

That's the strange and wonderful thing about my work.  It is a privilege.  To meet, to see, to know people whose lives are full, decorated, engaged, and engaging.  It is a privilege.  And after all, I am an optimist. So I keep my orchids and trust that one day they will bloom again.  I feed the finches and trust that they will love the small leaves of kale I place in their cage every few days.  I listen to the news and say my prayers and think of you.  And sometimes, when the light is just right, I remember Connecticut...and I sit in the Bishop's Chair and remember...with such endless fondness for this wild and crazy life I have lived.  And then, well, truth be told, I go back to work.

But even as I work for a living, I still find a time everyday to draw and paint, to capture images.  Maybe my optimism shows here as well - capturing something that will stop time, like Ippy's drawings and Steichen's images.  Maybe.

I love you, Miss Kelly. And I am always thinking of you.
Yours
Amanda