| / Home / Articles / Sarasota Magazine / 2007 / 06 / |
|
|
|
Print this page
Email to a Friend
|
|
Purchase listing|
A Visit from Sister Wendy The beloved art historian pays a call on a Sarasota couple. Susan Kelley |
Their relationship began in May of 2002, when Sister Wendy sent a note to the Wickiser Gallery in New York, where my husband was having a solo exhibition. She had seen a photo of his painting Tranquillo (now owned by Sarasota’s Dr. Murf Klauber), in ARTNEWS, and expressed an interest in “seeing more of the work of William Kelley.” Thus the friendship was born.
Since that time, Bill has often sent her photos of his new paintings. She responds with her comments and has written glowingly about the paintings, even calling him “the spiritual son to Cezanne.” His dream was to meet her one day.
In the event you are not familiar with the so-called “Art Nun,” Sister Wendy is arguably one of the top art experts in the world. Pursuing her childhood vocation, she joined the Sisters of Notre Dame at 16 and graduated from Oxford with highest honors in 1953. She went on to live and teach in South Africa and even served for a time as a Reverend Mother. She returned to England in 1970 to live a contemplative life in a hermitage on the grounds of the Carmelite monastery at Quidenham, Norfolk, where she spends the majority of each day in prayer, silence, and solitude, leaving the hermitage only when necessary to tape her television shows.
Reluctantly, she entered the public arena in 1991, appearing on BBC television in a documentary on London’s National Gallery. Popular acclaim brought her back to television as the commentator for Sister Wendy’s Odyssey, six short films about art treasures around Great Britain, and Sister Wendy’s Grand Tour, a series on European art. In 1997, Sister Wendy’s Story of Painting expanded her enthusiastic following to include American audiences. Her most recent series, Sister Wendy’s American Collection (2001), takes viewers on a tour of six American museums.
And that’s why it was so incredible that she made this secret journey to Florence. These days she leaves seclusion infrequently, and only for art-related visitations to a "particular art" she has decided on. In this instance, she was going to the Vatican in Rome to complete an audiotape about the Sistine Chapel before continuing on to the Basilica of San Domenico in Bologna. My husband and I have been spending about seven months a year in Florence, where he paints and I write. After months of barely legible notes and postcards—her handwriting is atrocious—expressing her desire to come to Florence, Sister Wendy put us in touch by e-mail with the priest, Father Steve Blair, who was in charge of trip planning. The adventure would be easy from now on with high-tech data in play.
Father Steve wrote back that he didn’t know who William Kelley was, but that Sister Wendy insisted on going to his studio and meeting him. We invited them to stay with us, thinking they would, of course, decline.
The next morning, I turned on my e-mail and read with shock and awe:
Dear William and Susan,Thank you for your kind offer to visit on Nov. 15 and to spend the night. We'd be very happy to accept if it wouldn't be too much of an inconvenience. It conjures up images of E.M. Forster’s A Room With a View.
By way of introductions (so you know what you're in for), you, of course, have seen Sister Wendy through her programs and I can only say that she is just as delightful in person.
I think I told you a little about myself, but to re-cap: I'm an Air Force Chaplain/Priest whose home is in the U.K. not too far from the monastery where Sister Wendy lives. I belong to the U.K. Diocese of East Anglia. I met Sister Wendy about seven years ago and we've become good friends since then. The other person who makes up our traveling trio is Rod Stephens, who lives in Irvine, California. Rod and I went to the seminary together and have been good friends for the last 40 years. His work is in art and design of liturgical and sacred space.
Looking forward to meeting up with you. Until then, best wishes.