Ruth Bernhard Oil Replication

When I lived in the Richmond Art Hotel, I searched for one of my favorite female photographers and discovered that she was right there in San Francisco across the bay from me. In those days phones were real phones and you could actually feel the person as they spoke through, hearing them as if they were in the very room you were in. I got her assistant who told me she "was in the mist of her own autobiography and very ill in her 90's. She said after asked if I could paint the photo in color with oils that she gave me permission to do the painting and I called back after I was finished and asked if she wanted a slide of the painting I had done. Her assistant who I do not recall her name said no you do not have to send her anything that she was sure I had done a good job. Her assistant also said she was not able to speak. Afraid I never called back should she not be with us then, in another space & time. I have always felt the presence of her in this work and that she taught me to see things in a different light & perspectve.