It's all made of paper

For months I've begun every day with the same ritual: roll over, open my eyes, read my email from John.  Since Christmas he's been in various hospitals in Kentucky -- yep, two months and counting. He's without his computer; he can't reach his telephone. So on the rare occasion when we talk I lay it on the line:  You've got to get well, John. Not hearing from you throws me completely off my game.

John is the curator of the Hickman County Museum, and after my mother's death he inherited her mantle as the county's resident historian. He's the one who knows where Camp Nelson was, who remembers that Marvin College was Methodist and Clinton College was Baptist, and who can tell--with proper embellishment--the story of Dr. Jackson's formaldehyde-soaked centipede.

John is a couple of years older than me, way more intelligent, way more resourceful, and way funnier.  His mobility is severely limited by spinal arthritis but his mind and heart are totally unfettered. He and my Mom were joined at the hip through their work at the museum, and when she died in 07 John and I became connected by default.

So today I'm once again phoning Western Baptist in Paducah, explaining to Kathy that John has no immediate family, noting that I am a designated contact person and trying to convey across three time zones that he and I practically define Modern Family, with ties more durable in fact than most genetic ones.

As usual I don't learn much, and with John on my mind I'm feeling off-center. Alone in San Francisco I often wish I had a secretary who could over-schedule me, or a job, as in those years of teaching when everything was clearly and irrevocably organized by hours and bells.  But today I am a particularly good Miss Hathaway, chalking off my chores in the morning (tidying, filing, dog-walking) and reserving my afternoon for the Legion of Honor Museum, and the Isabelle de Borchgrave show, which is about...paper.

I can faintly see the Legion of Honor from my house, but like so much in life, it seems almost impossible to get there.  I walk to 25th Avenue and hop the north-bound Muni, a two-dollar ride to lower Clement.  It's a long uphill walk to the top of the street, the entrance to Lincoln Park, the museum, and the exhibition. By 33rd Avenue I'm hoping this show will be worth the effort. It takes another 20 minutes to skirt the golf course and climb the steps of the museum. I am winded by now, and so are the tourists in new white running shoes who have been trudging up the trail alongside me. Some stop to take photographs of the path, obviously pleased that they have made it this far.

Isabelle de Borchgrave (b.1944) is a Belgian countess, which may explain how she has the time and unlimited revenue stream it must take to have constructed--since 1994-- dozens of historically-accurate, life-size pieces of clothing made completely from paper. From flappers to Medicis to Marie Antoinette, she (and the workers of her atelier) have meticulously duplicated every pin tuck, every ruche, every hand-knotted slip of lace or turn of a collar that made somebody famous look good.

Having always liked paper-- the riddle of origami, a well-aimed paper plane, a bad draft tidily ripped from a notebook, wadded, and sent sailing to the wastebasket--I am totally floored at her level of skill.  Besides marveling at the excruciating amount of research that's been done, I'm asking myself the big questions, "How did they ship these bustles from Belgium?? In giant hat-boxes?  In refrigerator crates labeled "day dresses of the Medici extended family, Handle With Care?"

Most of all I'm moved by the way Isabelle uses homely, expendable, and combustible materials:  rag paper, wadded, padded, and  stippled; corrugated cardboard, snipped, glued, polished; tissue, folded and fanned and glazed.  I hope it's not lost on viewers, as they crane their necks and itch to touch, that while the Elgin Marbles could be around forever, the gossamer lines of Isabelle's paper garments are astonishing in part because they seem to exist in peril.  One crushing blow or careless flick of an ash, and a work could be lost. This makes each layered creation seem almost as temporal and lovely as a life-breath.