a last wink? (cue the spooky organ music)
Tuesday, December 2, 2008 at 10:22AM 
Marlene's casket and burial plot
Years ago I lost a good friend to cancer. She was far too young, vigorous, and engaged to die. She was a professor in the School for American Craftsmen at R.I.T. and an Artist in her own right with a one-person show of her work at MOMA to her credit.
Literally, on her deathbed or, to be more accurate, the bed she would die in a few days later, she revealed to me - as part of an intense and emotional day long conversation about so many things - that, almost from the moment we met, she had considered me to be her platonic lover.
A few days later at her burial - in a plot given to her from the family plot of her attending physician at Sloan-Kettering (because she had no family to speak of) - I made this Polaroid picture.
Now, you and I know that the burned-out highlight on her casket is the product of the lens flare property of my SX-70 camera. BUT ... I would be remiss in not noting that my friend had always considered herself to be endowed with a healthy dose Extra Sensory Perception. And, I must admit that, on occasion, she demonstrated some remarkable "insights" (that she attributed to this "gift") that were difficult to explain using conventional wisdom.
So, who knows. Maybe she was sending me a good bye wink.
gravitas et nugalis
FYI, I am very happy and pleased to say that, per my friend's request, I was entrusted with disposing of one her primary assets with the purpose of funding an endowed scholarship program at R.I.T. - The Marlene M. Scott Memorial Scholarship - which, 25 years later, still exists to this day.
Reader Comments (3)
This is a most touching way to bring to surface the memories of a good friend.
Conclusive evidence that photography in the hand of the skilled and sensitive catches more than just reflected light.
What I am pondering here is my perception of the picture alone, without the story - how much difference it would have made. Hard to tell ex post. The ray of light as a messenger for life, for the living, for the remaining of deceased in the memories of the world is what touches my system.
I'm enjoying your rummage through the old box of memories Mark. I know a lot of people that can't stand looking at other people's family photos but I find them interesting. Seems there's always at least one universal thing in every box.