Portraits

In the year 2000, accompaniwed by Anne Adams Helms (daughter of Ansel Adams) and husband Ken, my wife and I spent a weekend in the Oxford home of Dr. Mike Weaver and his wife, Dr. Anne Hammond. At the time, Dr. Hammond had just completed her D. Phil. dissertation, a work on Ansel Adams, later published by Princeton University Press as Ansel Adams: Divine Performance. As a Professorial Fellow at Linacre College, Oxford Universitry, Mike has had a most dfistinguished career, teaching literature, film and photographic history.

Many years ago, my insightful primary care physician, Dr. Michael Smith, said very wise words: “We doctors know very little about nutrition, so I’m going to refer you to a wonderful nutritionist. Her name is Laura Knoff. I owe them both. When I first went to consult Laura, I was in really poor condition. Tests showed that my vitamin and mineral reserves were at a pathetically poor level. I also turned out to be resistant to dairy and gluten. Within a few months, there was a noticeable turnaround. Laura also gave me really wonderful advice on fats.

As a little boy walking on an Indian Ocean beach more that 70 years ago, I was told that if I held a larger concave seashell to my ear, I would hear the sound of the ocean. Unsurprisingly, I did, though I might have had the same effect from holding any vessel to my ear while strolling at the edge of the waves. Later, when a friend acquired a violin, I wondered whether the music played on that instrument would so permeate its being, that careful listening could detect those distant sounds.

About Five years ago I received an email message, commenting favorably on one of my articles, from Paul Sanders, former Picture Editor of The London Times. He also sent a link to his friend, Valda Bailey, who also wrote. For these past five years, Valda and I have been corresponding frequently and deeply about art and life, ambitions, family, travel, culture and just about everything else. This correspondence has been an important part of my life, and letters from Valda are always an occasion.

Vasudha Dalmia was born into a family of major Indian industrialists. Having decided to be a scholar of literature and drama, she received her doctorate at the University of Tuebingen, Germany. She arrived in the San Francisco Bay Area to take up the position of Chair of the Department of South and Southeast Asia Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. During her years in Berkeley, she was a frequent guest in our home, having so much in common with my India scholar wife Karine.

I’ve had a difficult health history, but I’ve also had remarkable physicians. My primary care doc for over thirty years was the remarkable Michael A. Smith, MD, whose wide-ranging understanding of health through many cultural-scientific perspectives not only helped me, but also led to significant referrals. One of those was to Nephrologist Robert Doud, MD, whose knowledge is greatly complemented with the caring he displays to his patients. Seeing Bob is always an occasion for the pleasure of connection.

For the 32 years since we met, she has been the love of my life, my intellectual partner, my dance partner, my teacher for relating well to all those we encounter. I love her graceful physicality, the sweet kindness of her temperament, her generosity of spirit, her laughter and her hugs. I love the sound of her voice, as well as the content of her speech. Is it possible to love to infinity and beyond? I do.

James Rehmus, MD and his oncologist wife, Esther, were participants in a National Geographic Tour of Rajasthan led by Karine and me. Jim was also kind enough to write the Foreword to my book Light And Recovery: Vaulting The Walls. He left the practice of medicine to become a painter, and that's how I chose to represent him.

"Emergence of Woman is a triumph!  The layers of history and natural history (texture of stone, classical edifice, dream-coloured leaves) and the two ‘views’ of the main subject, seeing and being seen, make this an image of past ‘emerging’ into the present.  With the figure looking out through a screen of bubbles (that are so instantaneous!), constantly on the edge, the pure water-tension, of dissolving into mist."  - Anne Hammond, D. Phil. (Oxon)  

After a weeks-long hiatus on the nether reaches of the creative cycle, I seem to be emerging once more.

A Bay Area resident, Gina is pictured here in San Francisco's Mission District, known for its public murals. For more on the model, see the following image in the Portraits Gallery, "Gina In Africa."   

Taking a solarized image of the harp of her piano, separately titled "Synesthesia," I superimposed a partially translucent image of my friend Anne Adams Helms sitting at the piano, trying to decide which music to play.

My friend Miriam in her hundredth year.

To this image of myself and my designs, I've added a portrait of my mother, made when she was 19, on the verge of leaving Latvia for a life in South Africa, where I was born. Here she is portrayed looking through the "yolk" of an elongated "egg" toward her son, her only fertilized egg.