From Wilma Siegel's "Former Hippie" Series...

A couple of years ago I received an unexpected email from a woman, an artist in Fort Lauderdale, who told me that she'd found me via a google search. Not because she was looking for me but because she was looking for middle aged people who'd looked like Hippies back in the sixties, long hair, bell bottom jeans, perhaps a guitar or a VW Microbus painted up in wild colors.

Well, there were plenty of photographs of myself and my friends posted here on this blog and elsewhere. There were plenty of "key words" in the text for a google search to find. Her idea was to do a series of paintings of the way we look now. I emailed some links to some more recent photographs of me. I agreed to meet her at her studio and pose for a painting. While I was there I also shot some B&W ultra-wide angle photographs with myself in the foreground on black and white film.

She started sketching a huge painting. As I remember it, the canvas was about four by six feet! I guess I was there for two hours or so. She did some sketching and shot a few photos of me also. She also asked me if I was still in touch with anyone else that met her criteria. I gave her John Patteson's name. He later told me that he'd given her a few more names. I've never seen any of the paintings themselves but she did send me an 8x10 color print of the picture of me. A couple of weeks ago I got an email invitation to an opening of Wilma's paintings at a gallery in Ft. Lauderdale. It was scheduled for the same night as the opening of my photography exhibit here in North Miami. Maybe next time...