Pencil, Pastel, and Watercolor (NFS)

“Fasten your seat-belts……it’s going to be a bumpy night…..”

My long time friend, the justly well-known documentary photographer, Titus Heagins (to see some really beautiful work, please go to: titusbrooksheagins.com) immediately responded to yesterday’s portrait of John Michael Lopez with a message sent from his i-phone: “i love it…best from you…do more of this”.

So, I did…..finishing up (between 5 am this morning and now, which is 1:30 in the afternoon) this small portrait of another friend from, once again, long ago and far away….Vermont, Oxford (the one in England, not the town north of Durham), etcetera……

Dawne, whom I first met at the Breadloaf Writer’s School at Middlebury, Vermont, was, in particular, a good poet, and (more generally) a force to be reckoned with, back in those early days (the mid-80’s, to be precise-ish). I thought (and still think) she was quite beautiful; so, the title of this portrait comes all too readily to mind.

Dawne was also the woman who memorably telephoned (after I had sent out, to 27 friends and relatives, what I now regard as a probably-gratuitous “coming-out” letter) to say “So…. you’re gay?  Great.  For a while there, I wondered if maybe you were something actually weird.….like just asexual…..”.

I love that line of hers from 1989.

go to (and it’s a great video):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eja-popojUo

Her hair is Harlow gold
Her lips a sweet surprise
Her hands are never cold
She’s got Bette Davis eyes

She’ll turn her music on you
You won’t have to think twice
She’s pure as New York snow
She’s got Bette Davis eyes

And she’ll tease you
She’ll unease you
All the better just to please you
She’s precocious and she knows just
What it takes to make a pro blush
She got Greta Garbo stand-off sighs
She’s got Bette Davis eyes

She’ll let you take her home
It whets her appetite
She’ll lay you on her throne
She got Bette Davis eyes
She’ll take a tumble and roll you
Roll you like you were dice
Until you come out blue
She’s got Bette Davis eyes

She’ll expose you, when she snows you
Off your feet with the crumbs she throws you
She’s ferocious and she knows just
What it takes to make a pro blush
All the boys think she’s a spy
She’s got Bette Davis eyes