“A persistent presence”: Memories of Patricia
She was my student at the start of my RISD career. Married, with a baby daughter, a commuting resident of East Providence, and a high school classmate of my elder brother, she took my class titled “World Literature” that covered excerpts from the history of diverse chapters of human civilization. The texts bound in cloth were a bit worn and rather the worse for wear, but Patricia was eager and took to the challenge of interpretation and ways of finding the idea of the persistent presence within contemporary contexts. That means, maybe in a comic strip, movie or even a television show. Mostly, though, our students had visual skills and taste. So, Patricia painted me in person, and as the semesters, years, decades, flew by, she depicted my son and my daughter, my wife, in short, my life!
We became good friends among the seasons and spaces of our tiny realm. She might greet me on the beach in summertime, or by the fireside at her home, or mine/ours. I keep these tokens in my garage/studio, upstairs gallery, or cellar nook or cranny. Our political views were not the major content of our conversations. They took place over a glass of wine or a cup of tea or coffee in the multiple avenues of our li’l Rhody dwellings, From among those remembered exchanges I will furnish a few further details of our differences.
Patricia was twice wed, first to my “eye doctor” – my optometrist – and then, after a divorce, to a high-school classmate admirer. He was raised at the Jewish Orphanage on Summit Avenue. Twice I attended their funerals. Her second husband loved our bay, and she took his ashes in a boat for his friends to scatter over its waters, a rather poetic gesture.
One of the major differences between us was, that she did not collect clutter and could adjust to changes of residence. I, on the other hand, was a compulsive collector of souvenirs, a hoarder of sentimental memoirs and a keeper of endless books, letters and snapshots. And, unlike Patricia, I live in the same house I’ve dwelt in since I was 3 years old! My residence is the volume of my autobiography.
On my final visit to her, to which I was invited by her daughter, Liza, as a farewell as she lay waiting to pass away, strangely patiently, she instructed me to visit her most recent paintings: one was a version of the famous photograph of the Duchess of Windsor, when she came to England to attend the funeral of her husband. The photograph of that most unpopular woman features a lonely pigeon on the windowsill of the room to which she was assigned at Buckingham Palace. This “dove of peace” embodied many hints of her loneliness, highlighting the doomed destiny she had endure in a long exile. Was she ever happy in it? I think not. Why Patricia invited me to visit that image I can’t imagine. Perhaps because it contains all the ironies and complexities of almost any life?
My opinion of Patricia is, that she was ever and always a seeker! Why she chose to depict me through the chapters of my career and the story of my life I do not know. I can at least celebrate that my collection of her paintings and her memory have both become beautiful decorations of my home and history. I believe that her admiration of Judaism figured in her life, a genuine part of her quests, her search and her destiny.
MIKE FINK (mfink33@aol.com) is a professor emeritus at the Rhode Island School of Design.
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