On Collaboration

Friend and Smithsonian Conservator Nora Lockshin wrote a lovely post on The Bigger Picture: Visual Archives and The Smithsonian about her research on artist Adelia Gates in response to my question on a watercolor I treated.  At the end of her post she wrote about the serendipity of finding mention of a flower in Gates’s writings, and of that flower being present in the painting I worked on.  Another layer of serendipity unfolded for me upon reading this – Adelia Gates found that flower by rock-climbing in Colorado.  As the director of the American Alpine Club Library, which is the world’s largest resource on mountaineering and climbing, that full-circle pleases me no end.