Loose Leaf Notes

The first time I met isa was in the late 1980’s at a neighborhood pond where weekly swimming lessons for Floyd homeschoolers and Blue Mountain School students took place. isa stood out, not only because of her striking beauty, but because she was the mother of two babies and was carrying one on each hip. Later, I came to know her as an artist. Looking for ways to make income as single full-time mother, I agreed to model for the Floyd Figures Art group, of which she was a member. I was amazed at how quickly she sketched a pastel portrait of me and how well she captured my likeness. When I told her how impressed I was, she ripped it off the easel and gave it to me.

We were co-counseling partners for a couple of years. After taking a workshop on co-counseling, hosted by isa at her house, she and I became regular co-counseling partners. Every couple of weeks, I drove out to her farm in Check and we would take turns talking and listening, giving each other our undivided attention. During this time I wrote a poem about her clothesline. I remember her field of purple coneflowers. She was growing them to harvest the roots for making Echinacea tincture. Sometimes I would model for her while she sketched.

I held isa’s third baby days after she was born. Her marriage was ending and she was beginning to think out loud about living in Hawaii. Later, we were in the same improv dance class that performed as a group at the Mountain Rose Dance Recital. When Joe and I got married in 1996, isa offered to paint us. Dressed in our wedding whites, we stretched out on a futon on her back porch (where the light was good). “Sit in whatever position is most comfortable,” she said. “This could take awhile.” Joe, taking her directive serious, lay down in my lap. At one point, isa’s then-boyfriend, who was a rock climber, came to visit. He proceeded to climb and then hang from the rafters of her porch.

Because of the proximity of Joe’s and my hand, which placed our wedding rings center stage, isa named the wedding portrait “The Rings.” It hung in her first show in Floyd at the Old Church Gallery before it found its way to a wall in our home. The image was also featured in a story about isa, published in The Floyd Press.

Post Notes: The above is the result of the positive feedback I received on my Monday’s entry about my friend isa and her art. When I mentioned in a comment that she had done a wedding portrait of my husband and me, several readers asked to see it. You can visit isa’s website HERE.