So I did. I told Ilona about where I’d grown up, in a small town in Washington state, about moving to New York after my partner died, about my books and writing, and how I started taking pictures a few years ago. Sometimes she asked brief, simple questions with genuine curiosity (“What are the books about?” “Where does your family live now?” “How did Steve die?”), but mostly she just listened and worked on her drawing as I talked. I’m almost never a talker, usually.
I tried hard to stay very still and to gaze directly into Ilona’s eyes, even as I spoke. She appreciated this. “You’re a very good model,” she told me at one point. “You don’t move.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“You’re welcome,” Ilona replied. She was very courteous, but her manner remained serious.
I didn’t have my glasses on, so I couldn’t see well what she was doing, plus, she sometimes held the pad in one hand as she drew.
“Sometimes I squint my eyes,” Ilona explained, “so I can get the general picture.”
She made more marks. “Nature is so extraordinary—no two eyes are exactly the same,” Ilona observed. She told me that she only does this—drawing someone’s eye—for special friends. I broke the rule and asked her how long had she been making these drawings? “At least fifty years,” she answered.
I nodded, but this was almost beyond my comprehension. She told me she’d drawn Tennessee Williams’s eye once.
“You have very beautiful eyes; I didn’t know, because of your glasses.”
I listened and gazed at her.
She continued to draw as she spoke. “I see intelligence, and behind the eyes, a great probing.”
I nodded slightly. This is a reading too, I began to understand.
Ilona worked in silence for a while. She squinted. “There is amusement in your eyes, but also … concentration, great concentration. Intensity, tremendous intensity—I’ve hardly ever seen anything like it.”
Did she say the same thing to everyone who sat for her? I didn’t care if she did.
I wondered if she’d say she saw sadness, loneliness, how I sometimes feel. But then again, at that moment, in that quiet chamber with the ninety-five-year-old artist, I didn’t feel lonely. I felt like the most important person in the world. I told Ilona that my mother had been an artist, and she used to do sketches of my five sisters and me.
She looked up and smiled. “That’s very nice.”
“She was wonderful,” I said dreamily, “I was lucky.” I told her that the whole basement of our house was like an art studio.
She asked if my mother was still alive. I said no, and she nodded.
I told her that my father had been very different—a military man, a war vet, a drinker, a gambler, an Irishman, tough—but also a provider, a word not often used anymore. He went bankrupt twice, but … he provided for us, put us all through school. I was lucky there, too, I thought to myself.
I thought about asking Ilona if she had been married or had kids, but I stayed quiet. One day, I’d take another picture of her, and I would ask her to tell me about herself.
Every now and then, Ilona would put down her pencil and smudge a line with her finger, or take a small eraser and erase something. The pencils were all in shades of orange, lighter versions of the color of her hair and eyelashes.
“I’m almost done,” Ilona said. I remembered how she’d told me on the phone that it would take twenty minutes, a half hour at most, and I noticed the green digital clock near her; indeed, about twenty minutes had passed.
She stopped, put down her pencils, looked at it carefully, smiled and nodded. “Here,” Ilona said, “your eye,” turning the drawing so I could see it.
I reached for my glasses and put them on. I felt speechless. Not only was it an accurate depiction of an eye, it was very clearly my eye—I recognized it—and although there was only one eye on the small piece of paper, it was as if the rest of my face were somehow there too: I could see my whole face in that one part of my body. I could see myself.
I admit, I was surprised. I hadn’t known what to expect, I hadn’t known if she could even draw; but indeed she could draw very well—and with delicacy, sensitivity.
Ilona could tell that I was pleased. She clapped her hands together. “Marvelous!” She turned the drawing back in her direction. “Isn’t that the most beautiful eye!” she exclaimed. This wasn’t meant as self-praise but instead as an appraisal of the eye itself.
I chuckled with embarrassment. “Thank you,” I said, “what an amazing gift, I don’t know what to say.”
“You’re welcome, thank you for the gift of your photographs. I’m happy we are becoming friends. Now,” her tone changed, “I must spray it, so it doesn’t smear.” She handed me a can of varnish. “Can you shake that? You’re much stronger than me.”
By Ilona Royce Smithkin