Lily, When I saw his work on the Weiden & Kennedy building here in Portland, I just walked inside and stood there with my mouth open. It was amazing. He had somehow created a new space inside an old building but it was also somehow connected to its original use and form. Do you think there were professional critics when the “arch” was invented. I think the only one around to be a critic, in western civilization I think was the Pope. He was usually the one paying for it. I’m not sure what was going on in India, China, or Egypt. Maybe even Africa since their building materials didn’t survive over time, we’ll never know. I love architecture, when I was in Chicago I almost broke my neck looking up at all the wonderful old buildings. My daughter had a loft in an old bookbinding building. To think that a business man would spend the extra money, about 15% to build and architect designed building, for manufacturing.. You agreed about the Detroit museum. When I went through it the first time I couldn’t believe their collection for a town no larger than it was. It wasn’t as busy as it should have been. I think in recent years we Americans have not done a very good job introducing our children to art. I grew up here in Portland as a child. We were taken as students to the museum, the downtown library, the symphony and to a ballet at least once often more during the grade school years. I remember puppets and mimes coming to the school as well as choral groups. I don’t recall that being provided for my children anywhere we lived and that was Eugene, Oregon, New Orleans, La. and Dallas, Texas. Just recently someone made a 1.5 million donation to our local museum to give children free access to the museum. So it had been stopped here too. Of course I provided it for my kids and some of their close friends. But not all parents are even aware of the benefits of culture in their childrens lives.

James, one of the finest museum with the finest collection I’ve seen anywhere is in Detroit. All that automotive money benefited it greatly. When you go to most museums they have little plaques next to them saying who they are on loan from. In Detroit they say who they were given by. That museum owns most of its collection. It also has a great modern collection. Well worth the price of admission. Bev.

Hello neighbor! We have a constantly improving museum right here in Portland. Bev.

Lee, it is funny you should mention that. My daughter and I are in the midst of year long debate about what is going to happen to it when I’m gone. It is something I should be thinking about since I’m 72 and she and my son are going to have to dispose of my art, my books and my collection of Jazz recordings and all my cooking equipment. Plus a freezer full of gourmet meals and a pantry full of home canned soups, all dated. I told her if they threw the food away I’d come back and haunt them. Back to the art. I thought that I’d suggest that family members could just come by and pick something they liked, after I was dead. My daughter a classically trained fine artist thinks I should give the whole shootin match to the local museum. I think it will go into some storage room to maybe be shown twenty five years from now to reflect art created from 1960 to 2008 if I don’t buy anything new. The thought that it would be put away where no one would love it breaks my heart. It isn’t valuable to anyone but me. At least I don’t think so, If it is, I don’t want to know. Time has taught me that you really can’t induce people to love art if they are not so inclinded. My neices and nephews as well as my grandson feel no particular need for art around them and my pieces aren’t necessarily going to trick them into a magical awareness. So if the museum is willing they probably will end up with it in the end. I’ve given my daughter permission to dispose of it how she deems appropriate at the time.

Liz, Thank you for a beautiflly written biography. I loved her in that Hitchcock movie.

Suzanne, Off topic just a little. Read if you haven’t already, Vanity Fair’s article, “An Oral History of the Bush White House”. It is good and it is in the current issue. I read it on the internet. I don’t know how long it will remain available so don’t doddle if you are interested. Bev.

He first came to my attention when he remodeled an old building for the local ad firm for Nike. It turned out great, creative, beautiful and functional. You can’t ask more than that. It was so great that a local art school moved into the parts of the building the ad firm doesn’t use. They ended up with some spectacular exhibit space. The critics were pretty hard on him but critics don’t like what they haven’t seen before. We here in Portland have fought hard to hang on to our old buildings and we celebrate those who can figure out how to make them safe [earthquakes] beautiful and functional, to give them a new life. I plan on seeing it the next time I visit my daughter. I wish I could afford him to rework my 109 yr old tri-plex. I’m up to my ears in my lifetime collection of art. I don’t even have to go to a museum, I just have to look around me. It’s getting a little crowded in here.

That remodel was done by a young architect from here, Portland, Oregon. We are proud of him. He actually graduated from Columbia. He actually specializes in Museums.

Chrome Toe, My first trip to New York was 21 years ago for my daughter’s wedding reception. We had a bi-coastal wedding. Wedding here in Portland w reception and reception for his friends and family in NYC. I spent 10 days with the newlyweds. They had to work but my daughter had a list of places for me to go and experience in addition to what we did together in the evening. I walked into the Met and got a map of the museum and sat in the coffee shop with an espresso reading it. A man at the next table asked where I was from, and when I answered and told him why I was in town, he asked if I would allow him to show me his museum. We spent a delightful day as he just waxed poetic about his museum. We never exchanged more than first names. What a delightful gentleman. My daughter taught me to be safe in the city. I visited many Jazz venues, I visited all museums, walked all over the city. Of course I stayed with the kids but a couple of years ago when they were living on 53rd just down the street from MOMA , there was a lovely affordable hotel that my ex-husband stayed in just around the corner. If you’d like to get the name I’ll be happy to do it for you. New York needs to be seen from the streets. I fell in love. If I believed in past lives I would have sworn I lived there in a past life. It smell right, it looked right, it sounded right. I’ve had several love affairs in my life. San Francisco when I was 13, New Orleans when I moved there at 26, my hometown, Portland, Oregon, when I moved back at 34, NYC at 51 when my daughter got married, Chicago when my daughter moved there when I was 63. Some people fall in love with men, me I fall in love with cities. She was in school at the Art Institute. That museum was developed to support the school. After she graduated from there it was back to NYC to get her Master at NYU. She is now a working artist in NYC so I have regular excuses to intrude on her life. It is a lovely wonderful place and you will love it. I forgot, don’t miss the stage shows, see a musical as well as at least one serious one. You can ask a travel agent how to get tickets at the last minute. My son in law is a native so we leave that to him but they’ll know to get you connected. You haven’t lived until you walk across the Brooklyn Bridge.

Mugsy, You just have to wait long enough. I colored my hair at about thirty as my blond hair turned dishwater. I stopped coloring it at about sixty, thinking I would go gray like my mother. She had beautiful white hair by then. I discovered I hadn’t and it was still dishwater. I said oh heck and left it alone. Slowly oh so slowly it is finally gray enough to be pretty. Just be patient. My problem is in my old age I only look young and spritely if I keep my hair very short. Finding someone who can cut it without making me look like a boy. Sometimes I let it grow awhile and then go get it cut and a very short cut takes ten years off. It makes me feel good.

The Rose Bowl game was New Years day 1958, the activites were the week before.

Kathleen Oliver, please thank you husband Mark for that essay that you shared on my 72nd birthday yesterday. When a friend shared in 1961 that he was gay, I had to look it up in an Encyclopedia Of Human Sexuality to find out exactly what it meant. But I did know I had to keep it secret because he would lose his job, college professor if any one knew. It would be another 20 years before being gay was something a man or woman could admit to without putting their whole lives in jeopardy. It would be about 12 more years before Clinton put out the don’t ask don’t tell rule. It has been a long rough road for those of our friends who were gay.

We also went to the Brown Derby as guests of the alumni assn to see Ray Bolger in a show called Charlie’s Aunt. You might have to look all that up somewhere. I bought my very first legal drink there. I’d turned 21 that previous Dec. 26th, just a few days before. The Brown Derby was a nightclub attached to the Ambassador Hotel. We stayed in bungalows at the back of the hotel. Pretty snazzy for a bunch of college kids. Wonderful memories. Ohio beat Oregon in the Rose Bowl by one point. We all blamed a bad call that cost Oregon a touchdown.

My first trip to Sea World was courtesy of the Rose Bowl Assn. I was there as a wife of a University of Oregon’s football player. I was young and wide eyed. You are right. It is amazing. Enjoy! They also took us to Disneyland. It was just two years old. It was 1958.

This day has been my birthday for 72 years. I’m not quite ready to relinquish my ownership of it. It is still mine. Bev.