Philip Gladstone: October 2020

The President of the Philip Gladstone Fan Club—as she would refer to herself, only half-jokingly—has died. We were the kind of friends that have no secrets from each other, no stories that couldn’t be shared (I’ll never tell, Doris), and she was a vocal supporter of and cheerleader for my work (which is to say, for me) and a talented artist in her own right. Oh, we sometimes disagreed and even had our little fights, but that never mattered… when Doris loved you, you were ‘in’, and the friendship was a safe place to be yourself, a place where mistakes were mistakes but they didn’t define you, and they didn’t define the relationship. And I loved her for that, and for so many reasons.

She was there with me for all my setbacks and triumphs and everything in-between over the last nine years, and I tried my best to be there for her… she was a kind of genius at being a friend, and I’m not, but I tried. I sent her a piece of my art that she could display in her hospital room earlier this year (she delighted in the staff’s awkward reaction to the nudity in the piece, she was impish like that) and she told me that it had given her renewed determination to get home and get back to painting herself, and against the apparent odds she did get home again that time. But this time, despite the progress she’d recently made, it wasn’t to be. The day before she died, a book she’d been occupying her time with in the hospital arrived at my mailbox… she thought I’d love it as much as she did and we’d talk about it after I’d read it. We won’t be talking about it (and I haven’t yet read it, it’s painful to think about that right now), but I’ll treasure it, and I’ll treasure her flowery inscription to me in her unmistakable hand.

She had an awe-inspiring marriage and love story, and years ago she asked me to paint a portrait of herself and her late husband, Elliot—no direction, no restrictions, she just flooded me with stories and photographs and trusted what I’d come up with. Over the course of several years (Doris took to calling me “Mike” while it was in-progress, predicting it would end up taking me as long as it took Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel) I developed a complex composition that was not so much a conventional portrait, but rather an attempt to contain a lifetime’s story within the frame of a single image, like a time capsule or a treasure chest. I was very proud of that one.

I’m proud of all the work in her collection, actually—when I finish a piece and it’s still fresh for me, I never have any idea whether it’s good or not, but Doris knew and she’d buy only the best. “Don’t Be Afraid” (her portrait), “Red, White and Blue: The Broken-Hearted Artist”, “Afterward”, probably the majority of my self-portraits from the years she was actively collecting, and dozens of other paintings, drawings, sculptures and giclées. My confidence can be pretty shaky at times, and she’d try hard to make me see what she saw in me.

I miss you already, “D”, and I always will