ELYSIAN Autumn 2021

ELYSIAN Women Inspiring Women

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The Windy Day, 40 x 30

By Carlos Gamez de Fancisco

Blue Jungle, 44 x 32

By Carlos Gamez de Fancisco

764 MIAMI CIRCLE, SUITE 132, ATLANTA, GEORGIA 30324 (404) 352-8775

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www.pryorfineart.com

1969 est.

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www.tirolergoldschmied.it South Tyrol - Italy

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the art of refinement diamond-studdet falconhoods

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Fashion designer Kim Kassas creates a look complete with sheer Solstiss lace pant slip, with a peplum accentuated turtleneck jacket dress with bell sleeves made of crocodilepatterned cow leather and gold hand-embroidered Egyptian hieroglyphic motifs on the upper arms.

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in the footsteps of nefertiti Kim Kassas harmonizes ancient culture in the Israeli fashion house’s distinctively modern “Walk Like an Egyptian” collection.

BY LOLA PORT

ELYSIAN Volume 7 • Issue 3 • l’automne 2021 • leadership éclairé

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70 104 Joan of Arc Deliverer of France BY SIMONE BAUDELAIRE-FARROW

Actress. Humanitarian. Businesswoman. She dazzled millions of moviegoers with her stunning beauty, and raised millions of dollars for AIDS research.

BY LAURIE BOGART WILES

FEATURES

Taylor

Montréal The autumn place. BY DAINA SAVAGE

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Inspiring Women Nikki Haley page 116 Bea Sibblies page 128 Kristin Harmel page 138 Alveda King page 148 INTERVIEWED BY KAREN FLOYD

DEPARTMENTS

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architecture

30 fashion&beauty Fusing architecture & interior design. BY CHRISTY NIELSON

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food&dining Casual elegance-elevated. BY EMMA MCCRACKEN

Eyeglasses: The better to see you with, my dear. BY PEARL LUSTRE

mind&body The art of mindfullness. BY MARTHA WIEDEMANN

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shopping

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A foggy day in London town. BY SINDIE FITZGERALD-RANKIN

change creator

Amina Khalil: Being the best version of herself. BY ALLYSON PORTEE

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philanthropy

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NAWA: The original art influencers. BY SUZANNE JOHNSON

back story

A salute ot our “Inspiring Women.”

on the cover

In honor of the 10th anniversary of Elizabeth Taylor’s death, we celebrate this amazing woman, her films, her career, her life—but most important of all, her philanthropy in the fight against AIDS. PHOTOGRAPH BY DOUGLAS KIRKLAND / CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES

When it comes to luxury real estate, we drive the conversation

italy-sir.com | +39 02 8707 8300 | italy@sothebysrealty.it MILANO | ROMA | FIRENZE | TORINO | COMO | LAGO MAGGIORE | LAGO DI GARDA | LUCCA | PORTO CERVO

c r e at o r - i n - c h i e f

Ryan Stalvey

executive editor

Laurie Bogart Wiles chief media director

Rob Springer

d i g i ta l m a r k e t i n g m a n a g e r

Cindy Bogart

managing editor

Kristen Henson

e d i t o r - at - l a r g e

Ruth Sherlock

editorial director

Rita Allison

social media specialists

Haley Hudson, Andrea McHugh e ly s i a n i m pa c t d i r e c t o r o f p h i l a n t h r o p y

Kelly Nichols

women inspiring women

Karen Floyd

arts

&

c u lt u r e e d i t o r

Hannah Shepard

l i t e r at u r e e d i t o r

Kathie Bennett

wellness editor

Martha Wiedemann contributing writers

Simone Baudelaire-Farrow, Suzanne Johnson, Pearl Lustre, Emma McCracken, Christy Nielson, Lola Port, Allyson Portee, Sindie Fitzgerald-Rankin, Daina Savage

copy editors

Monya Havekost, Diane High, Hadley Inabinet, Baker Maultsby, Phil Randall c o n s u lt i n g e d i t o r

Jason Spencer advisor

Abby Deering director of web design

&

development

Elliot Derhay

d i g i ta l s a l e s d i r e c t o r

Don Bailey

post-production editor

Elise Rimmer

post-production graphics

Ty Yachaina

special projects director

Kelly Ferguson comptroller

Anna Christian

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ELYSIAN Magazine is published four times per year by Palladian Publications LLC, 113 W. Main St., Spartanburg, SC 29306.

For subscription information, call 888-329-9534; visit subscriptions@elysianservice.com; mailing address: Subscription Service, Elysian Magazine PO Box 2172, Williamsport, PA 17703 All rights reserved. Printed in the USA.

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ELYSIAN Publisher, Karen Floyd, sitting with these remarkable women during their Inspiring Women interviews. From top to bottom: Nikki Haley, the first woman to serve as South Carolina governor. PHOTOGRAPH BY GRACE BELL / HAIR & MAKEUP BY ASHLEY BROOK PERRYMAN • Bea Sibblies, award-winning real estate developer in Harlem and founder of BOS Development. PHOTOGRAPH BY LISA PAVLOVA • Kristin Harmel, New York Times best-selling author. PHOTOGRAPH BY TANYA PTITSYN • Dr. Alveda King, niece of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and best-selling author, activist, broadcast commentator and songwriter. PHOTOGRAPH BY TANYA PTITSYN

E publisher

Karen Floyd

BOUTIQUE IN KING OF PRUSSIA MALL

PHOTOGRAPHED BY JULIAN LE BALLISTER

PAULAHIAN.COM

PAULA HIAN URSULA JACKET & JOLIE SKIRT PICTURED

PAULA HIAN

PEOPLE ARE MORE SIMILAR THAN WE THINK, ACROSS RELIGIOUS GROUPS, ETHNIC GROUPS AND RACIAL GROUPS. I BELIEVE AT THE END OF THE DAY; WE ARE ALL JUST PEOPLE.”

I AM

—KRISTIN HARMEL, NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLING AUTHOR

more convinced than ever before, that as women age, the best is yet to come.

Reflecting upon over six and a half years of interviews, I now recognize why. Women hold the uncanny ability to adapt, adjust and compromise.They are forced to “bend or blend” to avoid breaking. However, as families and careers mature, so too, do women. Over time, women “individuate” and self-actualize, creating an unusual juxtaposition.While on the one hand they understand the skills of compromise and adaptation, on the other hand, age creates a selfawareness and authenticity that allows differentiation. For women, age is a “rite of passage.”

ELYSIAN was the result of a personal quest to see what constituted “exceptional” women.Was it

With love,

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Karen Floyd Publisher

PHOTOGRAPH BY TANYA PTITSYN

timing, luck, innovation, funding, perseverance, faith, endurance or passion? Why did some succeed while others did not? In each interview, I asked the same litany of questions. I explained the process to each Inspiring Woman, that a portion of the interview was to acquire data, which was to be mined for empirical trends, quantifiable patterns and findings. The data shows that there really is no “secret sauce” to success and there is not one roadmap to achievement. But as Kristin Harmel suggests, we are all just people. With age and time, the Inspiring Women recognize and identify their “gift.” They all share one universal goal: making the second half of their lives more meaningful and purposeful with all their acquired life experiences.

I wanted to investigate the finding further and decided to dedicate this issue to “Thought Leadership.” Four separate verticals; faith, finance, literature and politics were selected. At the core of the interviews, I was looking to see how each woman used her experiences and understanding to propel herself forward to new heights personally and as inspiration for others.

This issue is therefore dedicated to “Thought Leadership” which is defined here as an authority in a specific field, recognized as experts, who ultimately earn the trust of their followers.They inspire, innovate and influence others with their suffering, successes, wisdom, and worldly impact.

So, what do the following thought leaders share—Alveda King (Faith), Bea Sibblies (Finance), Kristin Harmel (Literature), Nikki Haley (Political). On the offset, they all recognize their heritage and family of origin as key to shaping who they are today. Each of these women went against the odds and defied expectations set by others. In their own way, each experienced some form of “ism” whether racism, sexism or ageism . . . and they all persevered and overcame. They pushed through their apprehensions, doubt and fear of failure. They remained on course and stayed true to themselves. Each woman recognized the value of every human being, no matter race, religion or standing and each took positions to support that finding. Each had the courage to “stand against the wind.” Whether you agree or disagree with their respective positions, these women defied the odds and had the fortitude and courage that can only come from a self-awareness and inner strength that is fueled by passion. “Follow your passions, follow your heart, and the things you need will come,” said one the most inspiring women and thought leaders of all, Elizabeth Taylor. In honor of the tenth anniversary of her death— and for the first time in this history of our publication—Elysian features a true ICON on our cover.

Over the past 6 years, the ELYSIAN brand has continued to evolve. We have refined our focus to women over the age of 40. For these women who have “crested the top of life’s hill,” creating a meaningful second chapter of life is paramount. What connects us, brings us peace . . . the interviews reinforced that life is fleeting, today is a gift and compassion makes injustice intolerable.

Journey with us as we support our differences, steadfastly encouraging lifelong learning and the unique paths to finding our individual and collective purpose. ■

INCREDIBLE TRAVEL EXPERIENCES CURATED FOR YOU. For the discerning and inspired traveler looking to scratch beneath the surface, there is no substitute for a one-of-a-kind private travel experience. When you travel with Journeys, not only is your trip custom designed around your interests, but you also have inside access to the world not afforded the general traveler, including insights and experiences with specialist curators, chefs, local purveyors, hand-picked guides and service providers. We invite you to explore the endless possibilities of our Journeys.

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This retail space, with its large-scale use of stainless-steel materials and modern wooden accents simulating mountains and clouds, is inspired by the freehand brushwork in a traditional Chinese painting.

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architecture

Fusing Architecture & Interior Design

BY CHRISTY NIELSON

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+Living is a high-profile international architectural design firm based in Shanghai that was founded a decade ago by acclaimed Chinese architect Li Xiang. Renowned for occupying the space at the intersection of interior design and architecture, the firm’s goal is to balance the integration between functionality and aesthetics.

Xiang says her team’s success hinges on the careful planning of and adherence to the central point of view of each project. “Every functional unit and decoration are designed to serve the main theme of the space,” she explains.

An example is the Meland Club family park, which occupies two levels of the Shenzhen Uniwalk Shopping Mall and was inspired by features of the four seasons. Rather than using large-scale structures, Xiang designed a brand-new internal construction scheme that reimagines the composition of the space, utilizing artistic installations to represent the elements of each season. The result is a colorful (200+ hues were used!) and whimsical “garden” filled with abundant geometric figures and layers of interesting materials that infuse rich texture, energy and visual surprises into the space. But, as impressive as the aesthetics are, they are not the only consideration, according to Xiang.

“In this project, every detail has its practical functional significance,” explains Xiang, who has won international acclaim with a multitude of prestigious awards. “The cabinets and shelves are well-camouflaged as plants and can be used for storage, the seats shaped like flowers form a sofa for resting, and the bulbs hanging in the air actually hide lighting and sound equipment in them.”

This imaginative interior is one of the 50-plus projects in more than 30 cities across the globe that the firm has completed since 2011. X+Living’s vast portfolio spans everything from a chain of bookstores and other retail spaces, to hotels, offices, restaurants, educational institutions and more.

While these industries may be varied, there is a common thread weaving through each of Xiang’s endeavors.

“Even though the style and theme of our projects are different, we always try to achieve a surreal and magical feeling with our design,” she notes. “It helps create an immersive and rich entertaining experience,

Walking through this calm and peaceful fairyland-like space that was designed for the renowned green tea brand Zhuyeqing in its producing area of Chengdu gives one the feeling of a journey through the clouds.

Above: This room in the Beijing Zhongshuge bookstore at the Layfayette department store is reminiscent of a bamboo forest. Opposite: While the futuristic look of the interior space in the Beijing Zhongshuge bookstore might conjure thoughts of a sci-fi movie set, the space is actually inspired by a classic Chinese garden.

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The tables and chairs in the cafe at the Beijing Zhongshuge bookstore are distributed casually but in great order, simulating a gathering of ancient people in a famous Chinese painting called “Qu Shui Liu Shang.”

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The overall design at the Ripple Hotel is wood- and bamboobased, expressing an ecological sense reveled in a succinct and contemporary fashion. Right: A withered twig combines with the interaction of light and shadow in the restaurant at the Ripple Hotel to create the feeling of a mountain forest. Opposite: The spa-like bathroom is a serene space with dark tile and simple wooden accents that call to mind the natural surroundings of the Ripple Hotel at Qiandao Lake.

which encourages people to get offline and enjoy these real-life experiences more.” Xiang adds that the pandemic underscored the need for inviting, hands-on interactions, something that has always been a top priority for her firm.

Xiang is bringing her signature bold and playful elements to an even broader audience with the launch of a new brand, XOXOLI, which is currently under development. Offering a unique customer experience, the brand blurs the lines between dreamland and reality while integrating art into daily living in an imaginative and fascinating way that challenges aesthetic norms.

Learn more and shop the collection at en.xoxoli.com.

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iang says an early interest in painting and learning about art cultivated her curiosity about beautiful things and fostered her aesthetic consciousness. When she was in college, she began to realize the beauty of architecture.

“My architecture study background enables me to examine a space from a multi-dimensional perspective and uses architecture design techniques when approaching interior designs,” she describes of the fusion she forges between the two disciplines. “These techniques not only allow me to break through limitations, but also turn imaginations into reality, creating more possibilities and interesting experiences for customers in the limited indoor space.”

Xiang feeds her seemingly endless creativity through an approach that is both cerebral and tactile. “Experience made me realize that the needs of humanity can be changeable and quite complicated and, as a problem-solver in the service industry, I need to explore deep into it,” she shares. “Therefore, inspiration for me sometimes is a flash of contact with new things and sometimes is the result of sober and reflective thinking.”

Xiang’s projects are infused with Chinese culture and history and offer an enchanting experience that she hopes will be even longer lasting than the buildings themselves. “As an architect, my work might be gone one day as the time goes by,” she says. “However, I hope the experience they bring to visitors and their spiritual value can be passed on.”

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The Ripple Hotel lobby, overlooking Qiandao Lake, features a canoe seat carved out of wood and floating chairs as upright as lotus. The suspended ceiling is woven with locally produced bamboo that casts interesting shadows.

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The stately European-style living room at the Guangzhou Zhongshuge bookstore exudes elegance and cultural ambience. Opposite: The concrete wall extends to the facade wall and becomes a mirror frame of the bookshelf, reflecting visitors and books. Below: Children are drawn to a Dr. Seuss-like whimsy in the reading area designed just for them.

The Zhongshuge bookstores are most representative of this, as the firm incorporated the local landscapes and traditional culture into the designs for each location—mountainous landscapes for Chongqing Zhongshuge, a historical connection with water for Yangzhou Zhongshuge, and a famous dam for Dujiangyan Zhongshuge.

The Yangzhou Zhongshuge location reflects the city’s simple and elegant style. Upon entering the calm and serene space, an arched bridge filled with books greets visitors and a river-like gap overhead beckons readers to go deeper into a vast sea of books. The arch is not only an iconic element of the ancient city of Yangzhou, but it also represents the connection between humans and books.

More arches are present in the mirrored reading area where warm lights illuminate the curves, mimicking the flow of a river under a bridge sprinkled with sparkling sunlight.

Dujiangyan Zhongshuge, which is located in an ancient city surrounded by rivers, takes Dujiangyan’s famous dam into account with its fairyland-like design. A mirrored ceiling creates an expansiveness in the psychedelic space where soaring bookshelf walls—alluding to the iconic dam—reach upward. The books on the top of the bookshelf are decorative, though actual books are placed on shelves that are within reach of the readers. In all, the store’s collection totals more than 80,000 books! In another nod to nature, tables of books sit atop gleaming black tile floors, reminiscent of boats quietly mooring on a lake.

Moving these natural elements into interior spaces in an artistically abstract way is a hallmark for Xiang’s designs.

“When walking into the store, visitors can feel the size difference between themselves and the foreign object in the space,” she describes. “The impact on their souls is similar to the reverence we feel toward nature.”

These particular designs have gained international media attention, and Yangzhou Zhongshuge is even featured on primary school geography textbooks in India as being representative of the city of Yangzhou. “To be able to spread Chinese culture to other countries through my work is what I am most proud of,” Xiang reflects.

To learn more about this iconic and artistic designer and the successful firm she helms, visit www.xl-muse.com. ■

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The fantastical reading room in the Guangzhou Zhongshuge bookstore, with its mapped floor and mirrored ceiling, cocoons children in creativity, inviting imaginative exploration.

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food & dining

Sweden’s first restaurant to achieve three Michelin stars features a state-of-the-art open concept kitchen where guests dine counter side of some of the world’s top chefs.

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casual eleganceelevated

BY EMMA McCRACKEN

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weden’s first and only restaurant to attain three Michelin stars is not a restaurant. It’s an experience. As you walk through the door of the 19th-century three-story townhouse in downtown Stockholm, you leave the real world behind and embark on what can only be described as a gastronomic journey. Serving a fixed, seasonal tasting and drink pairing menu of modern Nordic cuisine with Japanese influence, Frantzén is quickly rising to the top of the list of the best restaurants in the world.

One of Michelin’s primary reasons for awarding Frantzén its prestigious third star was the restaurant’s unique design and philosophy rooted in “casual elegance.” If you are accustomed to white tablecloths, tranquil piano music or the sit-and-eat traditions of classic fine-dining establishments, the word “casual” may throw you for a loop. By replacing these with an á la minute kitchen, rock and roll tunes and a relaxed, comfortable atmosphere, Chef Björn Frantzén and his team have completely redefined the concept of fine dining.

Your journey begins in the penthouse lounge where you are greeted by welcoming hosts, the Champagne trolley, and an exquisite presentation of the fresh ingredients that you will experience throughout the day. Yes, the day. The affair, in its entirety, spans at least six hours, although some guests have been known to dedicate a full day for what will likely be the best culinary experience of their lives. Depending on the time of year, you may encounter black or white truffles, house caviar, langoustines, sea urchins and other luxurious morsels that will soon be transformed into delicate, artistic and memorable bite-sized dishes for you and 22 other guests. Inhale the aroma of the treasured truffle, squeeze the succulent finger lime, sample and savor the unique ingredients that will culminate into the dishes of dreams. In the intimate setting, guests become fully immersed in every aspect of the process as chefs explain both the origin of each ingredient and how it will be incorporated.

“Without exceptional ingredients,” Chef Björn states, “there are not exceptional restaurants. I wanted to start the project to ensure the demand for Nordic ingredients [prepared in a French or Japanese way] keeps on coming.” Appreciating the essence of

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fine ingredients in their original form is at the core of Björn’s passion for culinary art, and Frantzén allows him to share that passion with others through an interactive, immersive and engaging experience, offering guests the opportunity to learn and explore. “My dream was to open a restaurant that felt like being invited to my own apartment,” he says. “Most of all, I want the dining experience to be entertaining and playful.” With the creation of Frantzén, Chef Björn is driving up standards and presenting a new interpretation of fine dining.

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fter enjoying snacks in the lounge, (which might include beer croustade, tartelette with celeriac and truffle, Frantzén’s own Prestige Selection caviar from the Danish importer Rossini, or the famous potato and vendace roe Råraka) you are invited to the balcony for a breath of fresh air and to take in the exceptional view below of downtown Stockholm. At your leisure, you will

move to the dining room for the main event.

The dining room is essentially a massive state-of-the-art kitchen, featuring an open fire section, the golden duck press, and some of the finest chefs in the world. Guests sit counter-side to watch in awe as Chef Björn and his team prepare each dish right before their eyes. Some of the dishes served there may include raw Norwegian scallops with white truffle; langoustine tail, crispy Koshihikari rice, clarified butter and ginger emulsion; BBQ pigeon served family style with preserved blueberries, thyme, pickled mustard seeds, black trumpet mushrooms, and fermented peppercorn; or baked turbot, white Alba truffle, beurre blanc with Matsutake mushroom, kalamansi vinegar and walnut. Frantzén prides itself on utilizing the very finest of produce, choosing the best ingredients in each category, and sourcing the majority of ingredients from the Nordics and Sweden–though some elements are sourced from all over the world. Plating and finishing touches are performed tableside, where guests get an intimate look at the precision, delicacy and excellence that goes into every minute detail.

Raw otoro (fatty tuna), salted plum, tomato water, fermented anchovy, horseradish, and purple radish .

Opposite: Open the door to the three-story townhouse of Frantzén and step into a culinary oasis—the restaurant of Chef Björn Frantzén’s dreams. Every design element, from lighting to seating, to music and ambiance, is rooted in Chef Björn’s unique concept of “casual elegance.”

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WITHOUT EXCEPTIONAL INGREDIENTS, . . .

THERE ARE NOT EXCEPTIONAL RESTAURANTS.” —CHEF BJÖRN FRANTZÉN

Franztén’s chawanmushi, a warm Japanese egg custard, is topped with a hearty serving of the Rossini Prestige Selection caviar.

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The barbecued aged quail dish features a sizeable quail from Brittany cooked over open flame and lacquered with sauce à la presse. Left: A popular dessert dish on the fall tasting menu is the duck liver Créme caramel with salted nuts, oxalis, and raisin syrup. Opposite: The domains of the chef sommelier Anna Rönngren. While each dish on the fixed tasting menu is paired perfectly with classic prestige wines, guests also have the opportunity to explore Frantzén’s wine cellar and choose a bottle from a vast 1,700 references.

Operators of the most influential restaurant blog in Scandinavia, food bloggers Anders Husa and Kaitlin Orr, deemed their Frantzén experience flawless. Husa describes the meal as “bite-size bits of beauty that make you realize that Björn Frantzén isn’t only relentless in his quest for perfection, but also equipped with an exceptional palate.” When asked his most memorable bite of the day, Husa highlights several dishes, including the Norwegian scallops, XO sauce, finger lime, chrysanthemums and pine shoots; and the gorgeously presented and colorful raw otoro (fatty tuna), salted plum, tomato water, fermented anchovy, horseradish, and purple radish, which is almost too beautiful to eat. But especially outstanding is what is perhaps Frantzén’s most famous dish, the signature French toast “grand tradition 2008.”

The toast is soaked in butter with a Maillard crust. At your table, it is then topped with a cream made from Parmigiano Reggiano Vacche Rosse, a few drops of vinegar aged on juniper wood, and a “sinful” amount of black truffle shaved thin and stacked high.

“You can sense that Björn Frantzén leaves nothing to chance,” Husa writes. “Each dish is meticulously crafted and perfected before it reaches the guests. An overload of luxurious ingredients,

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yes, but never compromising on taste.”

Finally, you’ll return to the lounge for coffee and dessert.

Frantzén’s pastry chef, Cecilia Tolone, is regarded as one of the best talents in the industry. Originally from California, Tolone comes with a background from stellar restaurants such as the French Laundry, Craftsman & Wolves in San Francisco, and Lindebergs Bageri och Konditori. Tolone is responsible for the light-as-air macarons–a brilliant and renowned tea, milk, and honey dessert– which Husa dubbed as “the best thing [he] ate in 2018,” petit fours, and the unforgettable brown-butter Madeleines. Presented in a bowl filled with sugar, the warm, salty-sweet cookies serve as the very last bite of your epic culinary adventure. If you like, end the event with a cigar on the terrace or enjoy a game of Yatzy or Sorry! in the lounge.

Every element of the Frantzén restaurant, from décor, ambiance and seating, reflects the hospitality and sense of casual elegance to which Chef Björn aspired when he first conceptualized the “restaurant of [his] dreams.” It is both luxurious and relaxed, elevated yet down-to-earth—making the Frantzén an unparalleled experience. ■

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For the satio tempestas dish, bitter and pickled greens, crunchy fish scales, and whipped buttermilk with mortar herbs combine to create a culinary work of art.

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fashion & beauty

Eyeglasses: The Better to See You With, My Dear

BY PEARL LUSTRE

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readelysian.com readelysian.com • l’automne •2021 l’étéINSTA_PHOTOS • / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

In 1980, Sophia Loren (pictured here, with actress Sylva Koscina) became the first celebrity to launch an eyewear brand. Her collection remains one of the top-selling brands today. KEYSTONE PRESS / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO • Top center: Singer Katy Perry photographed during 2008/2009’s New York Fashion Week. REUTERS / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO • Lower center: SNL and 30 Rock star Tina Fey chose tortoiseshell frames to set off her large eyes and oval face. REUTERS / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO • Opposite: Marilyn Monroe gave sex appeal to eyeglasses in the 1953 film, How to Marry a Millionaire.

PICTURELUX / THE HOLLYWOOD ARCHIVE / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

merican poet and scathing satirist Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) was reigning queen of the Algonquin Round Table, a coterie of legendary writers and actors who, from 1919 until 1929, lunched at New York’s Algonquin Hotel while exchanging ribald remarks and witticisms. It was she who remarked, “That woman speaks eighteen languages, and she can’t say ‘No’ in any of them,” and, “If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people He gave it to.” Ah, but this is not about Mrs. Parker. It’s about something else she famously said, which was “Men seldom make passes at women who wear glasses.”

Greek scientist Ptolemy (100–170 A.D.) wrote about optics in the second century, but it wasn’t until 1284 that Italian inventor Salvino D’Armate invented eyeglasses. (No, it wasn’t Benjamin Franklin. But he did invent bifocals in 1784.) Glasses meant the wearer had weak eyes—until the 1950s, when cat-eye frames and rhinestone-encrusted rims became all the rage.

Both Jackie Kennedy and her rival for the hand of Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, diva Maria Callas, made oversized frames a Sixties statement. Aviator glasses soared through the Seventies. Today, 188 million people in the United States wear corrective lenses—and 91% of adults who are more than 55 years of age wear eyeglasses to enhance their vision.

Famous Women in History Who Wore Eyeglasses

CATHERINE THE GREAT OF RUSSIA (1729-1796) wore round-framed eyeglasses she kept in a solid gold, jewel-encrusted case.

Among America’s first ladies to wear eyeglasses was the very first, MARTHA WASHINGTON (1731-1802), George’s wife, who wore oval eyeglasses with tortoiseshell frames; renowned hostess DOLLY MADISON (1768-1849), wife of James, fourth

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president of the United States, wore gold rectangular glasses with temple sides. And MARY TODD LINCOLN (1818-1882) wore her gold spring lorgnette engraved with her monogram the night her husband, Abraham, was assassinated at Ford’s Theater.

MARIE ANTOINETTE (1755-1793) used an ivory and gold spyglass with a corrective lens to watch the drama of the French Revolution unfold until Monsieur Le Guillotine cut off her sight.

British Shakespearean actress SARAH SIDDONS (17551831), who theatrical history applauds as the penultimate Lady Macbeth, wore round tortoiseshell glasses. A century later, the great French stage actress SARAH BERNHARDT (1844-1923) would become an early star of the silent screen. She wore an antique gold-rimmed lorgnette trimmed with rubies.

CHARLOTTE BRONTE (1816-1855), author of Jane Eyre, who outlived her four sisters and brother, was severely myopic (-10 in each eye) and wore a round-frame tortoiseshell lorgnette. Painfully

reclusive American poet EMILY DICKINSON (1830-1886), who carried out most of her friendships through correspondence, wore octagonal frames with adjustable gold arms. And LOUISA MAY ALCOTT (1832-1888), beloved author of Little Women, wore steelrimmed oval glasses with a scroll bridge and straight sides.

Suffragist SUSAN B. ANTHONY (1820-1906) did not live to see (through oval lens, rimless glasses with wire sides) the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920, to which she dedicated her life. She paved the way for women’s rights activists “BATTLING BELLA” ABZUG (1920-1998)—who, coincidentally, was born that year—and author GLORIA STEINEM (1934- ).

Rounding out the list are female celebrities such as actresses Sophia Loren (one of the first to have her eponymous line of frames), Marilyn Monroe, Meryl Streep, Jennifer Aniston, Madonna, Anne Hathaway, Charlize Theron, Cate Blanchett, Zooey Deschanel,

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English actress, recording artist, and entertainer Anita Harris reading The Financial Times in a publicity still for the 1966 British mystery, Death is a Woman.

KEYSTONE PRESS / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

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Courteney Cox, Isabelle Adjani, Emma Watson, Julia LouisDreyfus, Eva Longoria, Julia Roberts, Jennifer Garner, Diane Keaton, Bridget Bardot, Susan Sarandon, Tina Fey, and singers Katy Perry, Rihanna, Jennifer Lopez, and Lady Gaga.

So, what shape’s your face?

When it comes to which type of eyeglasses will best suit you, it all comes down to the shape of your face. There are eight individual categories: rectangle, oval, square, heart, diamond, round, triangle and oblong. If your face is rectangular, oval, square, heart, diamond, round, or triangle, look for round or oval rims that soften the angles of your face. Triangular faces rock in aviator or cat-eye frames. If your face is round, rectangular or geometric, cateye, or D-frames may suit you best. Oblong faces look great in oversized frames, and if you have an oval-shaped face— well, you’re lucky. You can wear almost any style frame.

There are, however, certain rules of thumb to picking out the right frames. When you smile, the top of your rims should never touch your eyebrows or cheeks. There should be a slight gap between the frame’s arms and your temples.

If the arms dig uncomfortably behind your ears, then your frames need to be fitted. Frames that extend beyond the sides of your face or high above your eyebrows are not flattering. And if your glasses keep sliding down the bridge of your nose, then get them fitted.

The Booming Trend in Blue-Light Glasses

The hottest trend in vision today is blue-light glasses.

Jennifer Lopez wears them. Kylie Jenner and Rashida Jones endorse them. And Drew Barrymore sells them. “As many customers started working from home last year, we have seen a significant rise in demand for these lenses,” Neil Blumenthal, a chief executive of the online eyeglass merchant Warby Parker wrote in a recent email to the New York Times. “Last April, we saw a sizable increase specifically for nonprescription blue-light-filtering lenses and we’ve seen this trend continue throughout the pandemic.”

Blue-light lenses filter harmful waves emitted by the sun that cause eyestrain and retinal damage. Conversely, blue light boosts attention and alertness in the daytime but suppresses the natural production of sleep-inducing melatonin, a natural hormone produced by the pineal gland at night, which controls the sleep-wake cycle. (Melatonin is synthetically produced in pill form and available over-the-counter by companies such as Nature’s Bounty, Vitafusion, and Zarbee’s Naturals.)

By and large, scientists agree that digital eye strain is very real. But they are not so sure about blue light. “No one has established an independent causal association between blue light coming from the computer and visual symptoms,” Dr. David Ramsey, a retina specialist at Boston’s Lahey Hospital and Medical Center concurs. “The amount of blue light that our devices emit is too small to be a serious risk,” he explains. “Our eyes take in significantly more blue light outside than inside, even when it’s cloudy.” He further suggests, “Using our computers for long periods of time may lead to eye strain. It’s important to take breaks. That has little, if anything, to do with blue light.”

Bottom line?

See your eye doctor annually, even if you choose to order your glasses online. It’s not just about the prescription. It’s about how your vision may have changed over the previous year, and if your eyes are showing signs of glaucoma or cataracts, eye pressure, dryness, sunburn. Remember, you only get one pair of eyes in a lifetime. And when you choose frames, make sure they reflect your personality, your needs, and fit properly. Most of all, a terrific pair of eyeglasses should make you feel good about yourself whenever you look in the mirror. ■

An icon for aging fashionably, interior designer Iris Apfel considers eyeglasses to be work-like jewelry, as featured in this 2015 Kate Spade fashion house advertising campaign. GRZEGORZ CZAPSKI / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO Above: Grace Kelly was short-sighted and wore reading glasses—as she did here, reading her script on the set of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1955 thriller, To Catch a Thief, in which she starred opposite Cary Grant.

CINECLASSICO / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

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mind & body

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the ART of

MINDFULNESS

BY MARTHA WIEDEMANN

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W

hat is ‘Mindfulness’ and why it is important? Mindfulness is being fully aware and conscious of what we are thinking, doing and experiencing without assessing it in any manner. It is being in a state of awareness of the present moment, without reacting or passing judgement on what is occurring. The regular practice of mindfulness helps us to dis-identify with the mind made sense of self. Understanding and learning to manage the roles and functions of the mind are key in how we attain mental peace, harmony and connect to universal consciousness.

AYURVEDA AND THE MIND Ayurveda sees the mind in four parts: Ahamkara, Chitta, Manas and Buddhi.

Ahamkara is the ego or self-conscious mind.

Chitta is the non-thinking or subconscious mind.

Manas is the sensory and emotional mind.

Buddhi is the intelligence or conscious mind.

Ahamkara is the formulated self. It separates us from others by our likes, dislikes and tells us who we are in our relationships.

As the ego, it sets the boundaries by our beliefs, gender, culture, skin color and so on. Chitta is the storehouse of our memories and tendencies. It contains our deep-seated emotions, habits, impressions, attachments and functions even when we sleep.

Manas is the outgoing mind, seeking to experience the world.

It connects and directs our sense organs to realize what it wants to experience. Buddhi is the qualitative, rational mind with the ability to decipher right from wrong and through which we establish our principles. When directed outwardly, Buddhi functions through Ahamkara, Chitta and Manas. If the function of Buddhi is predominantly outward, we lose the ability to be objective, restrict our full potential and exist on a superficial level. Whilst the experiences of the external world are essential to our development, it is through the spiritual development of

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Buddhi that we find deeper meaning and fulfilment. When Buddhi functions inwardly, it leads us to our true self and pure consciousness. It connects us to our true purpose and we see the oneness of humanity and our connection to all creation.

It is through developing Buddhi fully, that one can attain enlightenment as Buddha.

PRACTICING MINDFULNESS The practice of mindfulness gives us the ability to observe the mind without associating with it. There is little for us to do except allow ourselves to be fully aware of the here and now. It is a shift from doing to observing, from assessing to accepting and perceiving rather than judging. Start to become aware of all that is, including your breath and how it moves through your body. Notice its rhythm without attempting to control it. Simultaneously, your mind may drift off into subjects that are not part of the present moment. Simply allow all distractions to pass through without giving their details any focus. Allow your eyes to observe what it sees without labeling or assessing anything. There is no need to give anything a definition. Ahamkara, or our egoic self confuses us into believing that everything, especially who we are, is definable.

In the pursuit of mindfulness, the ego may try to convince you that you are wasting time and that there is so much that requires your immediate attention. It is important to avoid debating with your thoughts, and merely allow them to pass. As you become aware of the present moment in its natural state, you may realize that you are not your past, your limited beliefs, fears, desires and least of all, what others perceive you to be. We are all greater than our physical beings. In reality, it is easier to determine what we are not than it is to define who we are. Through the practice of mindfulness, we are able to explore the limitless. There is something liberating in this realization. The practice of mindfulness is a means to switch off from our constructed identity and become more aware and connected to our pure self.

WHAT WE CALL “I” IS JUST A SWINGING DOOR WHICH MOVES WHEN WE INHALE AND WHEN WE EXHALE.” —SHUNRYU SUZUKI

ZEN MIND, BEGINNER’S MIND: INFORMAL TALKS ON ZEN MEDITATION AND PRACTICE

This may be a new state of being for many of us but it is through this practice that we disassociate from thought identity.

Being in a state of awareness interrupts the momentum of the mind activity. When we practice mindfulness, we are able to notice our own erratic thought process and become aware of how we are rarely truly engaged in reality and the present moment. The regular practice of mindfulness and remaining neutral will help us to build a connection to our true self, enabling us to experience a more fulfilling existence.

WHY MINDFULNESS IS BENEFICIAL The activity of our mind is completely private in the sense that others cannot see or hear our thoughts. Whilst we can appear present and engaged in an activity or conversation, our thoughts are often drifting elsewhere. As children, we learn etiquette on how to comport ourselves socially; however, mental etiquette is something we seldom learn much less practice. We are encouraged to multitask, which interrupts our attention and focus. There is so much in our stimulating world designed to capture our attention and distract us from our intended focus.

Unfortunately, we have become overly exposed to interruptions and seem to have little control over how this happens. Hence, being mindful soon becomes a rare occurrence The mind is extremely mobile, it can easily drift away and

mentally disengage from the present, especially from robotic mindless activities. It has a tendency to move towards emotionally charged thoughts, such as guilt, our fears, worries and painful or uplifting past experiences. The mind also entertains itself by mentally creating and constructing future scenarios based on its emotions and ego.

We may not realize how much self-talk and mental chatter is occurring in our mind while we go about our daily activities and sometimes even into our sleep state. The mind can become addicted to the thinking process; jumping from subject to subject, past, present and future often stirring up emotions and reactions that are not completely relevant to current experiences. This can even lead us to identify with stories and events that have been mentally altered and therefore not actual.

In essence, it is the mind’s role to collect information, decipher it and form conclusions, however, when it becomes deranged, it may even modify the facts to protect its ego. Know that the extreme outward actions of Buddhi leads one to be indifferent, self-seeking,

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cruel, hateful, ruthless, assessing, judgmental and punishingly reactive. When the inwardly actions of Buddhi are strongly developed, one is naturally compassionate, intelligent, humane, generous, connected to all creation, acts in the support of all life, is loving, recognizes and enhances the good in all.

A

ccording to Ayurveda, the wrong function of Buddhi leads to disease.

As Ahamkara has a subjective nature, it will try to pull us back into our egoic state to separate us from unifying with consciousness. It is the part of the mind that believes in protecting its identity and remaining separate from others. It is when we develop Buddhi spiritually or inwardly, that we are able to evolve beyond our ego.

When we get into the regular practice of mindfulness, we are able to train the mental muscles to exercise being more present. It is clearly not practical for us to live continuously in the now, because our lives operate within some structure of planning. We can however find one moment each day to pause, interrupt the mental noise and become aware of our true self and its link to all creation and to cosmic intelligence. ■

R_SZATKOWSKI / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

ABOUT MARTHA WIEDEMANN Martha Wiedemann is the Principal and Wellness Advisor of Badrutt’s Palace Hotel in St. Moritz, Switzerland. Martha was the leader of the multimillion-dollar expansion of Badrutt’s Palace Wellness Center to incorporate Ayurveda and Feng Shui. She is a world-renowned wellness and Ayurveda expert, nutritionist and has opened wellness centres in various five-star hotels and medical centres around the world. She is responsible for the concept, design and functions of Badrutt’s Palace Wellness Spa, as well as introducing the practice of Ayurveda to Switzerland.

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A foggy day in london town

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BY SINDIE FITZGERALD-RANKIN

G

eorge Gershwin wrote the music, his brother, Ira, wrote the lyrics, and Fred Astaire introduced A Foggy Day in London Town in the 1937 musical motion picture, A Damsel in Distress. Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holliday, Sarah Vaughan, Tony Bennett, Michael Bublé, and even David Bowie and Willie Nelson would record it and make it their own. When you find yourself taking a walk on a foggy day in London Town—or anywhere else, for that matter—slip on a raincoat, some smart gloves, a classic pair of boots and a shoulder bag, tie a colorful scarf ‘round your neck, and grab your umbrella. You’ll look great, rain or shine. ■

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Deliverer of France

OAN of ARC

by Simone Baudelaire-Farrow

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Joan of Arc by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1882.

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Joan of Arc, oil on canvas by Jules Bastien-Lepage, 1879.

ACT, AND GOD WILL ACT.”

left Mark and Marlene’s chateau after a leisurely breakfast of fresh fruit, coffee, and beignet. We were a house party that summer— six adults, including our hosts, each couple with a pair of children, all between the ages of 10 and 15, together for a long, leisurely, three-week vacation. M & M had bought the chateau years before at a time when you could buy one, with acres of rose gardens and even a moat, for the price of a two-bed, two-bath cape back home. Theirs was three stories, had ten suites, a Steinway concert grand that Mark had shipped from their home near ours in New Hampshire (along with the piano tuner we both used, to tune it), and filled it with an eclectic mix of modern furniture they imported from Boston and 18th century antiques from Paris’ most famous flea market, Les Puces de Saint-Ouen.

As usual, Marlene had risen early to buy beignet. You have to buy beignet—French donuts—fresh as it is critical to eat them warm from the oven. Mark prepared all the meals. Food was his passion. But generally, we went out to eat one main meal every day. It was a long drive to anywhere from their remote chateau in Normandy, but it didn’t matter. Life at the chateau was all about food. Sometimes we drove two hours just to go to some wondrous out-of-the-way brasserie Mark had managed to ferret out. Most days, though, we set out for the charming city of Rouen, which was only a half-hour away, to put together a picnic lunch we’d take to the beach, where the children could play. We made the usual stops: first, the boulangerie for baguettes and fruit tarts; then, the boucherie for meat pates then, next door, the poissonerie for luscious salmon pates and the fromagerie for cheeses. And last but certainly not least, the cave a vins for wines. We always allowed a bottle for each adult. It is an unproven fact that you do not feel the effects of a bottle of wine if you drink it leisurely over the course of an afternoon when savoring a lunch picnic on the pristine white beaches of Normandy.

It was on the first of our many trips to the Place du Vieux Marche— the Old Market Place—in Rouen that I would encounter the modern Eglise Sainte Jeanne d’Arc, the church completed in 1979 that marks the place where she was burned at the stake for heresy in 1431. Later, I read how years before Paul and Julia Child offloaded their blue Buick station wagon—they called it “the Blue Flash”— from the S.S. America after it docked at Le Havre. It was in Rouen, at a petit resto—

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—JOAN OF ARC

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A view of Joan of Arc Street, Orléans, France: During the Hundred Years’ War, the 17-year-old French peasant Joan of Arc led a French force in relieving the city of Orléans, which had been besieged by the English. The house referred to as ‘Joan of Arc’s’ is located on the edge of the former medieval city, where she lived in 1429. Opposite: Oil painting, on canvas, of Joan of Arc wearing a suit of armor over a red skirt painted by John Everett Millais and published in 1865.

small restaurant—where they stopped for Julia’s first meal in France on their way to their new home in Paris. So, in a sense, Julia Child’s career as the world’s most famous chef began in Rouen. And where the life of Joan of Arc, history’s most famous female warrior, came to an end.

“The Maid of Orléans”

he was perhaps the only entirely unselfish person whose name has a place in profane history. No vestige or suggestion of self-seeking can be found in any word or deed of hers.

When she had rescued her King from his vagabondage, and set his crown upon his head, she was offered rewards and honors, but she refused them all, and would take nothing. All she would take for herself—if the King would grant it—was leave to go back to her village home, and tend her sheep again, and feel her mother’s arms about her, and be her housemaid and helper. The selfishness of this unspoiled general of victorious armies, companion of princes, and idol of an applauding and grateful nation, reached but that far and no farther.”

Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc was written in 1492 by Sieur Louis de Conte as a legacy to his “great-great-great nephews and nieces.” Purportedly, it is the most personal account of the life of the legendary female warrior and saint in print to this day. Then eighty-two years of age, de Conte grew up with Joan, a peasant girl, in the rural medieval farming village of Domremy, in the Vosges of northeast France. In his words—“I was her playmate, and I fought at her side in the wars; to this day I carry in my mind, fine and clear, the picture of that dear little figure, with breast bent to the flying horse’s neck, charging at the head of the armies of France, her hair streaming back, her silver mail plowing steadily deeper and deeper into the thick of the battle, sometimes nearly drowned from sight by tossing heads of horses, uplifted sword-arms, wind-blow plumes, and intercepting shields.

I was with her to the end; and when that black day came whose accusing

shadow will lie always upon the memory of the mitered French slaves of England who were her assassins, and upon France who stood idle and essayed no rescue, my hand was the last she touched in life.”

The memoir is divided into three sections—the first, recounting Joan’s youth; the second, as a commander of the army of Charles VII of France during the Lancastrian phase of the Hundred Years’ War and, lastly, as the doomed defendant in her trial in Rouen. A mere girl of nineteen, she was tried for witchcraft and heresy, found guilty, and burned at the stake in 1431.

To evaluate the life of any individual who has left a decided mark upon this earth is impossible without some understanding of the time, place, and circumstances in which they lived. This is no mean feat.

Delving into history requires an inquisitive mind, a desire to learn, and quiet contemplation in which to do it. In an age when people are wired to expect instant results at the touch of a keyboard and find meaningless gratification in the superficiality of social media, grasping the past simply takes too much time and effort.

And yet, the story of Saint Joan of Arc has transcended time. It’s an unparalleled story of a girl who cut her hair short half a millennium before flappers made ‘the bob’ stylish in the Roaring Twenties. It’s the remarkable story of an uneducated teenager who heard voices, doubted, and finally obeyed what she believed was God’s will. Indeed, it is the story of a valiant young woman who wielded an invincible sword, and led a weakened French army into battle against a formidable enemy of English and Burgundian soldiers to victory. And it is a story of abject betrayal: although Joan fought to restore the embattled crown prince, Charles of Valois, to the throne of France as King Charles VII, he afterwards chose to do nothing to save her from the burning stake.

Joan of Arc’s story gained strength and inspired countless millions over the ensuing six centuries. In the early 1890s, one Jean Francois Alden had discovered the original unpublished de Conte manuscript buried in the

The Maid by Frank Craig. Joan of Arc (1412-1431) otherwise know as “The Maid of Orléans,” the folk heroine and Roman Catholic saint, is seen here leading the army into battle during the Hundred Years’ War. THE HISTORY EMPORIUM / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

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National Archives of France. The greatest authorities on Joan of Arc and authors who published scholarly works, were invited to form a committee to examine the manuscript— and to a one, they verified its authenticity. They were: J. E. J. QUICHERAT, Condamnation et Rehabilitation de Jeanne d’Arc. J. FABRE, Proces de Condamnation de Jeanne d’Arc. H. A. WALLON, Jeanne d’Arc. M. SEPET, Jeanne d’Arc. J. MICHELET, Jeanne d’Arc. BERRIAT DE SAINT-PRIX, La Famille de Jeanne d’Arc. La Comtesse A. DE CHABANNES, La Vierge Lorraine. Monseigneur RICARD, Jeanne d’Arc la Venerable. Lord RONALD GOWER, F.S.A., Joan of Arc. JOHN O’HAGAN, Joan of Arc. JANET TUCKEY, Joan of Arc the Maid. ews of the discovery went around the world like wildfire. The manuscript was kept under lock and key. It was determined that a prominent language professor at Oxford University would be approached to translate the work. In the academic world, his knowledge was considered unparalleled. As the son of an aristocrat whose grandfather was the illegitimate son of a queen of England, only he was permitted by the British Museum to personally handle Shakespeare’s original manuscripts.

It was agreed on with the sole condition that he not only translate the manuscript from medieval French to modern French, but translate the work into English. His condition was this: he insisted his name would be withheld from the public to protect his anonymity and afford him the absolute privacy his full efforts would require. It is said he never left his study for four years. There he slept, and there he took all his meals. There was one other condition: that the author’s credit entitled to the translator would simply be “Anonymous.”

The book first appeared in serial form in April 1895, published in New York by Harper’s Magazine. The story of the teenage girl who was instructed by Jehovah God to save France enthralled men and women from every walk of life. Lines waiting for the next installment at the newsstand were city blocks long.

One who was captivated by her story of divine fortitude was the great American writer, Mark Twain. There was something about the girl that struck a chord in his very soul. For America’s greatest humorist, the beloved creator of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, was deeply spiritual.

He had experienced vast success and great failure in his life. To be a writer is an intense, spiritrending, debilitating process that many of the greatest cannot survive. But the sixth of seven children whose father, a judge, died when he was only eleven was raised to persevere. Even after his wife and three of their four children would predecease him, he persevered till that night when Haley’s Comet, which had appeared on the night he was born, returned to carry him Home.

Whatever it was about Saint Joan that absorbed Mark Twain, we can only surmise. But this we know: There was no man named Sieur Louis de Conte. Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc was not written in 1492. No manuscript was discovered in the National Archive of France; there was no committee. The translations were never by “Anonymous” because “Anonymous” never existed, though it is true the first few installments that were serialized in Harper’s Magazine that August of 1895 were credited to “Anonymous.” But the world quickly figured out that the author of Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc was none other than Mark Twain himself. His work on Joan of Arc was by far his most serious work of all—and Twain was determined to prevent his reputation from influencing the public’s perception of his biography of the young woman who had given him such inspiration—and fortified his own personal relationship with his lord, Jehovah God. For you see, the real meaning of Saint Joan’s story goes beyond her visions. Hers is a story of faith, absolute faith, that a higher, greater, absolute power commands over all. Her sacrifice is not just an emblem of self-denial, it is the undisputed knowledge that God’s promise is real and that one day, in God’s Own Time, His promises will be revealed to each and every one who believes.

This is what I believe Mark Twain believed. And though I may not be entirely right, I cannot be wrong by much.

J

The Truth About Joan oan of Arc, a village girl from the Vosges, was born about 1412; burnt for heresy, witchcraft, and sorcery in 1431; rehabilitated after a fashion in 1456; designated Venerable in 1904; declared Blessed in 1908; and finally canonized in 1920. She is the most notable Warrior Saint in the Christian calendar, and the queerest fish among the eccentric worthies of the Middle Ages. Though a professed and most pious Catholic, and the

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Photochrom print Joan of Arc’s medieval tower—the castle where she was held before being burned at the stake in 1431. Tower, Rouen, France. Opposite: Joan of Arc (1412-31) Interrogated by the Cardinal of Winchester, c.1824, oil on canvas, by Hippolyte (Paul) Delaroche.

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Jeanne d’Arc conduite au supplice (Joan of Arc being led to the stake) by Isidore Patrois, 1867.

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The golden statue of Saint Joan of Arc on the Rue de Rivoli in Paris, France sculpted by Emmanuel Fremiet in 1864. BLACKMAC / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM Opposite: Statue at The Church of Saint Joan of Arc, Sainte Jeanne d’Arc on Vieux-Marche Square, Rouen, France. BRIAN HARRIS / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

projector of a Crusade against the Hussites she was, in fact, one of the first Protestant martyrs. She also was one of the first apostles of Nationalism, and the first French practitioner of Napoleonic realism in warfare, as distinguished from the sporting ransom-gambling chivalry of her time. She was the pioneer of rational dressing for women and, like Queen Christina of Sweden two centuries later, to say nothing of Catalina de Erauso and innumerable obscure heroines who have disguised themselves as men to serve as soldiers and sailors, she refused to accept the specific woman’s lot, and dressed and fought and lived as men did.”—Preface to Saint Joan, a chronicle play in six scenes by George Bernard Shaw, first performed in 1923, inspired by her canonization in 1920, nearly five centuries after her death in 1931.

Joan was thirteen when she first began hearing God speak to her. She was frightened—too frightened to understand—until one day, at the age of sixteen, her fear turned to faith. She made a vow of chastity with God so she could perform her divine mission with pure devotion. When her father tried to force her into an arranged marriage, she fled to Vaucoulleurs, to present her case to the local magistrate, Robert de Baudricourt. Rejected at first, he relented, for who was he to declaim Jehovah?

Joan cropped her hair, dressed in men’s clothes, and made her way across enemy territory to the crown prince’s palace, in Chinon. She demanded an audience and asked Charles to provide her with an army that she would lead to fight for France, fight to see him crowned king, and fight to fulfill God’s purpose for her. Against the advice of his counselors and military advisors, Charles supplied Joan with an army in March of 1429. Dressed in white armor and riding a white horse, she led the French assault against the Anglo-Burgundian forces, and drove the enemy out of France. Joan and her followers then escorted Charles across Reims, taking towns in their path that resisted by force and, in July 1429, she witnessed, as she promised, the coronation of King Charles VII. It was a miraculous victory. France had been saved. Joan was heralded as God’s emissary. But the war was far from won. Paris was still held by the Anglo-Burgundians; Joan gathered her army together and attacked two months later, in September. The Burgundians were driven out of Paris, but Joan was thrown from her horse, just outside the gates of Paris, as they were being closed.

Joan was taken captive. The savior of France was now in the hands of the enemy and she was paraded, with great fanfare, over 135 kilometers to the castle of Bouvreuil in Rouen, in the province of Normandy, the seat of the English commander. She was then tried on 70 charges against her,

including witchcraft, heresy, and dressing like a man.

“She rebels against Nature by wearing men’s clothes, and fighting. She rebels against The Church by usurping the divine authority of the Pope.

She rebels against God by her damnable league with Satan and his evil spirits against our army. And all these rebellions are only excuses for her great rebellion against England. That is not to be endured. Let her perish.

Let her burn. Let her not infect the whole flock. It is expedient that one woman die for the people.”—Saint Joan, a play by George Bernard Shaw.

Spoken by the character of Stogumber in Scene IV. Fearing Joan’s power would hold dominion over his, King Charles VII, who owed his life to the young warrioress, made no attempt to negotiate her release. After a year in captivity and torture, Joan finally relented and signed a confession denouncing her claim that she had received divine guidance.

“To shut me from the light of the sky and the sight of the fields and flowers; to chain my feet so that I can never ride again with the soldiers nor climb the hills; to make me breathe foul damp darkness, and keep from me everything that brings me back to the love of God when your wickedness and foolishness tempt me to hate Him: all this is worse than the furnace in the Bible that was heated seven times. I could do without my warhorse; I could drag about in a skirt; I could let the banners and the trumpets and the knights and soldiers pass me and leave me behind as they leave the other women, if only I could still hear the wind in the trees, the larks in the sunshine, the young lambs crying through the healthy frost, and the blessed blessed church bells that send my angel voices floating to me on the wind. But without these things I cannot live; and by your wanting to take them away from me, or from any human creature, I know that your counsel is of the devil, and that mine is of God.”—(Joan, Scene VI,) n May 30, 1431, Joan was taken to the marketplace in the center of Rouen and burned at the stake. She was only nineteen. With her death, her fame spread far and wide. Unable to ignore the furor long-held by his people, King Charles VII, at the behest of Joan’s mother, ordered a new trial, more than 20 years after her murder.

Posthumously, Joan of Arc was cleared of all charges. In 1909, she was beatified at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris by Pope Pius X and in 1920, she was canonized by Pope Benedict XV as Saint Joan of Arc. “O God that madest this beautiful earth, when will it be ready to receive Thy saints? How long, O Lord, how long?”—Epilogue, Shaw’s Saint Joan ■

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Actress. Humanitarian.

Businesswoman. She dazzled millions of moviegoers with her

stunning beauty, and raised millions of dollars for

AIDS research.

by Laurie Bogart Wiles

Beautiful Beyond the Dreams of Pornography” —RICHARD BURTON DESCRIBING HIS WIFE, ELIZABETH TAYLOR, IN HIS DIARY

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PHOTOGRAPH BY DOUGLAS KIRKLAND / CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES

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72 HE HAD A RARE GENETIC MUTATION known as FOXC2, double eyelashes, God’s mascara, which naturally set off those violet eyes. “She…was unique. Starting with the eyes. Have there ever been eyes like that? And if the eyes are the mirror of the soul, then that is where we should look to appreciate the essence of this woman,” Angela Lansbury, her National Velvet co-star, observed.

She was too short to be a film star, Hollywood predicted. And yet, she would become “a star of enormous, worldwide magnitude,” her fellowactor and friend, the late Robert Hardy, declared.

“She nailed you with those eyes. Elizabeth was one of these formidable creatures that just had a lazar-like intensity when you watched her act,” said Pierce “007” Brosnan, whose first film role was opposite Elizabeth in the 1980 feature film adaptation of Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d.

“She wore her sexuality and sensuality with grace and style.”

She commanded front-page news since co-starring in 1944 with Mickey Rooney in National Velvet, “the most exciting film,” she held, of her storied career. Elizabeth Taylor, one of the most notable women of the twentieth century, continues to garner headlines today, ten years after her death.

Her acting career spanned seven decades, from her first appearance in 1942, at the age of nine, when she sang a duet in There’s One Born Every Minute with Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer of Our Gang fame. She was the last mega-star to emerge from Hollywood’s factory system. Elizabeth Taylor

starred in 58 major motion pictures, seducing men in most of them.

Celebrated by the American Film Institute as the seventh-greatest female screen legend of Classic Hollywood Cinema, she retired from acting in 2001, a decade before her death. During her incomparable career she was nominated for five Academy Awards (winning two); three British Academy Film Awards (winning one); and won three of her eight Golden Globe nominations, including the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1985 “for outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment” by the Hollywood Foreign Press. In 1999, she returned to England, where she was born, after an absence of seven years to accept the BAFTA Fellowship Award. In her acceptance speech she confessed, “I never really thought of myself as an actress—and I didn’t think any of you did. I haven’t even tried to act for, God knows how many years, but most of my work has been dedicated to AIDS and it takes up all my energy, my love, my compassion, it’s become my life now. So, although I miss being in films, I have a full-time job and thank all of you who made yourselves available in the fight against AIDS. I’m here to thank you for this most incredible award.”

In 1993, at the 65th Academy Awards, Elizabeth received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for contributions to humanitarian causes.

“I call upon you to draw from the depths of your being—to prove that we are a human race, to prove that our love outweighs our need to hate, that our compassion is more compelling than our need to blame,” she urged the star-studded audience at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion that evening.

Publicity stills of actors with animals was a staple of the Hollywood factory publicity mill. This photograph of Elizabeth Taylor with Lassie was shot for the 1946 production of Courage of Lassie. Three years earlier, in 1943, the then-unknown child actress had a small role in Lassie Come Home, for which she was paid $100 a week. Lassie got $350 a week. Opposite: Eleven-year-old Elizabeth Taylor is shown in a wardrobe test for one of her early breakthrough roles at MGM’s National Velvet. COURTESY HERITAGE AUCTIONS / HA.COM

Elizabeth Taylor’s real life played out like a turbulent, seething, cinematic drama. Few women have achieved such highs; fewer still, such devastating lows. And those crushing lows she faced with unflappable courage. “You just do it,” she said. “You force yourself to get up. You force yourself to put one foot before the other and, God damn it, you refuse to let it get to you.

You fight. You cry. You curse. Then you go about the business of living.

That’s how I’ve done it. There’s no other way.”

Elizabeth Taylor was indeed a survivor who lived life with passion and love, right up until the moment she drew her last breath in her beloved Holmby Hills estate, on March 23, 2011, at the age of 79—just two miles from where it had begun—Hollywood.

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Part 2. GROWING UP

HE WAS BORN ELIZABETH ROSEMOND TAYLOR on February 27, 1932, into privileged London society. Her parents were American expatriates. Her father, Francis Lenn Taylor, was a successful art dealer and her mother, Sara Sothern, was a retired stage actress. She had one sibling—a brother, Howard—who was three years her senior. The handsome family lived at Heathwood, a large and gracious six-bedroom, Georgian-style home located at 8 Wildwood Road in Hampstead, an affluent suburb of London.

Weekends and summers were spent at Little Swallows, a 16th century gamekeeper’s lodge on the grounds of Great Swift, a 400-acre country estate near Cranbrook in Kent.

“It was so beautiful,” Elizabeth wrote. “There were hundreds of acres to roam over. My brother and I made pets of all the animals—pet rabbits, pet turtles, pet lambs, pet goats, pet chickens. It was my idea of real bliss.”

There she would ride her pony, Betty, a gift from her godfather, British diplomat and patriot Colonel Victor Cazalet, who owned Great Swift.

Elizabeth attended the Montessori School in Highgate, in walking distance from her family’s London home, Heathwood, and was raised by her mother and her Uncle Victor in the Christian Science faith. Her life was bucolic and carefree when the storm clouds of World War II gathered over Europe. One day in April 1939, Elizabeth’s father, Francis, received a phone call from Joseph P. Kennedy, then in London serving as the United States Ambassador to Great Britain. (John, Bobby, and Teddy were among Joe’s nine children with wife Rose.) “You must leave England!” he forewarned his friend. Days later, the Taylor family set sail for New York on the S.S. Manhattan. Four months later, on September 3, 1939, Great Britain declared war on Germany.

The Taylor family initially settled in Pasadena, California, in Elizabeth’s maternal grandfather’s home. By the new year, they rented a bungalow in Pacific Palisades and, a few months after that, moved into a spacious Spanish-style stucco home at 703 North Elm Drive, which Elizabeth would call home for a decade.

Elizabeth Taylor photographed at her home, circa1956. © 1978 SANFORD ROTH / AMPAS / MPTVIMAGES.COM

Doris Day makes a phone call in the garden at her home in Toluca Lake, Los Angeles, California, circa 1955.

PHOTOGRAPH BY PHIL BURCHMAN/PICTORIAL PARADE/ARCHIVE PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES

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Behind the Scenes Photos, included are candid images of Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, George Stevens, Paul Fix and Bob Hinkel (Hudson’s standin), taken on set by Jimmy L. Powell in Keswick and Charlottesville, Virginia, June 14, 1955. Opposite: Elizabeth Taylor lassoed on the set of Giant, 1955.

IMAGES COURTESY HERITAGE AUCTIONS / HA.COM

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Part 3. THE EARLY FILMS

ER ENDURING LOVE OF ANIMALS was unmistakable in her second film, Lassie Come Home (1943), the first of the popular Lassie movie franchise, in which she played the minor role of Priscilla opposite her lifelong friend, Roddy McDowall.

McDowall, then thirteen-years-old, recalled, “On her first day of filming, they took one look at her and said, ‘Get that girl off the set—she has too much eye make-up on, too much mascara.’ So, they rushed her off he set and started rubbing at her eyes with a moist cloth to take off the mascara.

Guess what? They realized she had no mascara on. She had a double set of eyelashes. Now, who has double eyelashes except a girl who was absolutely born to be on the big screen?”

Shortly after, Elizabeth made her third film as Helen Burns, in Jane Eyre, the film adaptation of the 1847 Charlotte Bronte novel starring Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine, followed by Betsy in The White Cliffs of Dover (1944), with Irene Dunne, again appearing with her friend, Roddy McDowall.

National Velvet was the film that catapulted the young Elizabeth to fame.

She didn’t play Velvet Brown. She was Velvet Brown.

“I think she loved making National Velvet because she always had a passion for horses and would have been heartbroken if she hadn’t played the part,” observed her longtime friend and Little Woman co-star, Academy Award winning actress Margaret O’Brien. Elizabeth knew horses. She had the English accent. But MGM wasn’t convinced the twelve-year-old actress was right for the role. “It was me, my whole life, my relationship with horses. ‘I’m sorry, you are very sweet, and very talented, but you’re just too small,” she recalled when the studio initially rejected her for the part. When she saw the studio did not see her potential, Elizabeth took matters into her own hands.

“I was swinging from doors to make myself grow, I ate steady, and stretched myself, and grew three inches in three months.” Her tenacity won her the role. Elizabeth did almost all the riding, suffering many accidents during filming. Born with scoliosis, these falls—compounded when her curved spine was pulled to hasten her growth so she could land the role—led to back pain problems that would plague her the rest of her life.

National Velvet opened on January 26, 1945, three months before the end of World War II in Europe. Her co-star and lifelong friend was Mickey Rooney, adored by film-goers for his role in the Andy Hardy movies. America went to see the latest Mickey Rooney film—but left talking about Elizabeth Taylor.

“The moment she appears on screen, the picture was hers.”

Elizabeth was fourteen-years-old when she starred in Courage of Lassie (1946),

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the third of the Lassie films, and played Mary Skinner in Life with Father with William Powell and Irene Dunne. Two films followed before she played Susan Packett in 1948 in Julia Misbehaves. She was Amy March in the 1949 remake of Little Women. Then came the forgettable thriller, Conspirator, with Robert Taylor; three years later, they reunited in the 1952 blockbuster, Ivanhoe.

Among her most endearing movies were Father of the Bride (1950) and its sequel, Father’s Little Dividend (1951), in which she played Kay Banks opposite her onscreen father, Spencer Tracy. (She called him “Pops” in the film and in real life, till the day he died at the age of 67, in 1967.) MGM used her marriage to mercurial hotel heir Conrad Nicholson “Nicky” Hilton, Jr. as a publicity stunt that coincided with film’s release. Now a married woman, Elizabeth emerged as a steamy seductress in her role as the beautiful socialite Angela Vickers in the 1951 drama, A Place in the Sun. In 1956, Elizabeth was cast with Rock Hudson and James Dean in Giant. She played Leslie Lynnton Benedict, a young temptress. The movie transformed both Elizabeth and Rock from merely beautiful actors to serious stars.

At 24, James Dean was the poster boy of teenage disillusionment and social alienation. Elizabeth adored him and together, their dark, sultry, intense looks were powerful on screen.

In 1961, filming began on Cleopatra. And the rest, as they say, is history.

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Part 4. ALL THOSE MARRIAGES

HE WAS THE STUFF PAPARAZZI’S DREAMS were made of. In the real-life drama that played out over four decades of marriage, Elizabeth wed seven times. Twice she married the love of her life. Three of her marriages ended within a year. Four lasted less than five years. One barely survived a tumultuous decade. All but one ended in divorce—and that one left her a widow.

Her fairy tale marriage to Hilton didn’t last past the honeymoon and after only 30 weeks, Elizabeth separated from the notorious womanizer, abuser and alcoholic. Less than a year later, she was engaged to English actor Michael Wilding, 20 years her senior. He provided her with a stable home life and two sons, Michael and Christopher. “She was sort of on the rebound from a bad marriage,” Margaret O’Brien said.

“Michael was a very nice, sweet person who was the opposite of Nicky. But it didn’t give her the great love she was looking for.” The marriage ended in divorce after five years.

THE

Part 5. THE JEWELS

DAY AFTER HER SEPARATION from Wilding, Mike Todd, the flamboyant, swashbuckling Jewish entrepreneur and film producer (Around the World in 80 Days) came knocking on Elizabeth’s door. In him she finally found that great love she had been looking for. Twenty-three years her senior, they wed in 1957.

Todd showered his bride with millions and millions of dollars in jewelry. In one instance, captured in a 16mm home movie, Todd surprised his pregnant wife while she was swimming in their pool by clasping an exquisite Burmese diamond and ruby necklace around her neck. “He was so generous,” she would reminisce, “and he took such care of me. I felt so protected and loved.”

A year later, Elizabeth had delivered Liza, her first daughter and only child by Todd. She was happy. She was fulfilled. She was starring with Paul Newman and Burl Ives in the film adaptation of Tennessee William’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Meant to be filmed in black and white, Mike Todd went to MGM and insisted the film be made in technicolor to capture the most beautiful eyes in Hollywood, Elizabeth’s incomparable violet eyes and Newman’s piercing blue eyes. “If you don’t,” Todd threatened, “you can find another actress.”

Elizabeth’s performance as Maggie the Cat demanded more depth from her than any movie she had made before. “You needed big actors to cope with Liz as an actress, or else she eats them alive,” observed one film critic, and she met her match in Newman, who played Brick, her alcoholic, ex-football player husband who resists his wife’s affections. They made sparks playing off one another; indeed, their performances are among the most volatile, passionate performances in film history and earned the film six Oscar nominations, including Best Actress for Elizabeth and Best Actor for Newman.

But her perfect world came to an abrupt and tragic end too soon. After only thirteen months of marriage,

Elizabeth’s first daughter, Liza, her only child by her third husband, American theater and film producer, Mike Todd. Tragically, their happy marriage was short-lived. Todd died when his private plane, The Liz, encountered icy weather over New Mexico and crashed. The couple had only been married 16 months.

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80 Featuring an all-star cast with Elizabeth in the title role, Cleopatra was the most expensive motion picture ever made by Twentieth Century Fox—and one of the lengthiest productions in film history. Fraught with delays, not the least of which was Elizabeth’s near-death battle with pneumonia, the film was finally released in 1963, three years after filming had begun in 1960. It was on the set, in 1961, that Elizabeth would meet the love of her life, Richard Burton, who played Cleopatra’s lover, Mark Anthony. Pictured: Elizabeth with Rex Harrison as Julius Caesar, in the scene where Cleopatra makes her entrance in Rome.

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Todd’s private twin-engine Lockheed Lodestar, The Liz, crashed outside of Grants, New Mexico on March 22, 1958.

“I felt terrible for Liz,” Margaret O’Brien recalled. “I felt that was the right man. She finally met her soulmate, and this was a good marriage. What tragedy to finally meet the right person and have him taken from her. If Mike hadn’t died, they would have been married the rest of their lives.”

“His legacy was love. He taught me what love really meant,” his 26-year-old, grief-stricken widow mourned. Elizabeth was forced back to work only two weeks after the funeral. Much as she had done when James Dean was killed during the filming of Giant, Elizabeth drew on her raw emotions for her role.

Todd’s death sent her reeling into the arms of his best friend, singer Eddie Fisher. It was only natural. Married to America’s sweetheart, Debbie Reynolds, the couples had been close and lived nearby. Fisher made it a point to look in, frequently and . . . evolved. News of their affair flamed headlines the world over as “the scandal of the decade.” Taunted as a homewrecker for luring Fisher from his wife Debbie, and their two children (their daughter was actress Carrie Fisher), it was generally felt Elizabeth’s chances of winning the 1955 Academy Award for Best Actress were blighted by the scandal. Instead, it was awarded to Susan Hayward. The affair also destroyed any chance of success in her subsequent, short-lived marriage to Fisher.

Part 6. CLEOPATRA

IN 1961,

ON THE SET OF CLEOPATRA, Elizabeth met her destiny and the second great love of her life, the enigmatic Welsh actor, Richard Burton. Burton as the dynamic Roman general Mark Anthony, captured Cleopatra’s—and Elizabeth’s—heart. Cleopatra marked a huge stride in both actors’ careers. An arena for their talents, it was the biggest motion picture Twentieth Century Fox ever made—and a chunk of the film’s vast budget went to Elizabeth when the studio agreed to pay her a record $1 million. “If someone’s dumb enough to offer me a million dollars to make a picture, I’m certainly not dumb enough to turn it down,” she said.

Filming took place at cold, drafty Pinewood Studios outside of London, and during filming Elizabeth encountered one of her numerous hospitalizations and greatest ordeals: the fight for her life. On March 4, 1961, less than four months after being hospitalized, filming again ceased when Elizabeth was rushed to the hospital with double-pneumonia and underwent a scarring emergency tracheotomy. A crowd gathered in vigil around the hospital. Twice she was expected to die. But she did not and, in true Hollywood fashion, the groundswell of public sympathy lifted her from homewrecker to heroine. Again, Elizabeth was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, for Butterfield 8. But this time, she won. “I don’t really know how to express my gratitude for this and for

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everything,” a weak but beaming Elizabeth whispered breathlessly in the microphone to a packed, emotional audience at L.A.’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, “I guess all I can do is say thank you, thank you with all my heart.”

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Part 7. RICHARD BURTON

RODUCTION FOR CLEOPATRA WAS MOVED TO ROME. The first time they met, Richard was suffering from a massive hangover, which Elizabeth found endearing. In their first onscreen kiss, they ignored director Joseph L. Mankiewicz when he shouted, “Okay, stop, it’s time for lunch!” But they did not. The chemistry was explosive, and they would often disappear in a dressing room when they should have been shooting a scene. “Burton couldn’t do anything about it,” one cast member observed. “He was completely intoxicated.”

Richard’s close friend, actor Robert Hardy, perhaps said it best. “Burton and Taylor were the two most extraordinary people I ever met. I think that she found her match in him and Richard loved being adored by the one and only Elizabeth.”

The press got wind of the adulterous affair, branding the couple, “Liz and Dick.” They didn’t apologize, even when the Vatican called them “moral vagrants” and they were denounced in the halls of Congress and Parliament as “flaunting the very rules of society.”

“It was probably the most chaotic time of my life,” Taylor later reflected. “What with le scandale, the Vatican banning me, people making threats on my life, falling madly in love… It was fun and it was dark—oceans of tears, but some good times too.” On March 15, 1964, “the marriage of the century” took place in Montreal, Canada.

The literary Shakespearean actor and tempestuous Hollywood goddess were completely exposed. Their lives were no longer protected. Everything they did became public knowledge, and they did nothing to dim the limelight.

They cultivated an outrageous style. “We would fling from one country to another country and, in midair, all of a sudden we’d decide to (change route) and fly to Venice for lunch.”

Their flamboyant, jet set, champagne lifestyle made them superstars. They loved to drink, party, and swear. By the time they divorced for the first time, ten years later, Richard had spent over $65 million—about a half-billion-dollars—keeping Elizabeth happy. Like Mike Todd, Burton showered his wife with jewels—most famously, the flawless 33-carat Krupp diamond ring.

“How perfect if a nice Jewish girl like me were to own it,” she had cooed, batting her thick, black, double eyelashes.

“I’m going to get you that one,” Richard replied. And he did. Elizabeth would describe the Krupp diamond’s “hypnotic beauty that pulls you in and doesn’t let you go.”

Among other jewels Burton lavished on his wife was the 16th century Taj Mahal diamond necklace, inscribed, “To my beloved mahal,” and a jewel-encrusted hieroglyphics bracelet that once belonged to King Faruk.

In 1969, Richard gave Elizabeth a supremely special Valentine’s Day gift: the world’s most famous pearl, “La Peregrina,” once owned by Queen Mary Tudor (1516-1558), the only child of King Henry VIII and the first of his eight wives, Catherine of Aragon. The couple was staying at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas in a suite “the size of three tennis courts” when New York jeweler Ward Landrigan, who had sold Richard the Krupps diamond, personally delivered the Peregrina necklace. Elizabeth

Elizabeth Taylor photographed on location in Big Sur for the 1965 drama film, The Sandpiper, directed

by Vincente Minnelli. It was one of the eleven films Elizabeth made with Richard Burton.

IMAGE COURTESY HERITAGE AUCTIONS / HA.COM

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Elizabeth with her husband, Richard Burton, and her Best Actress Oscar for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf at the 1967 Academy Awards. This was Elizabeth’s second Oscar. Though nominated for his role in the same film, Burton lost to fellow-Brit, Paul Scofield, who won for A Man for All Seasons.

immediately put on the necklace but a few moments later, realized the priceless pearl was missing. A crunch was heard during the ensuing, frantic search only to discover one of Elizabeth’s two Lhasa Apsos had the pearl in her mouth, undamaged. In 2011, the Peregrina, remounted on a Cartier diamond and ruby necklace, sold for almost $12 million.

“Diamonds are forever,” to coin the James Bond film, but the Taylor/Burton union was not meant to last. They made eleven movies together and two in particular, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Franco Zeffirelli’s film adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, were windows into their own, tempestuous relationship. “When you become so much in the other person’s pocket, mind and soul, you begin to lose our own identity,” Elizabeth reflected.

They divorced in 1974 only to remarry sixteen months later, in Botswana. However, Richard’s drinking problem had become insurmountable and the “love affair of the century” ended in divorce a second time, less than a year later. “You must know, of course, how much I love you. You

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must know, of course, how badly I treat you. But the fundamental and most vicious, swinish, murderous, and unchangeable fact is that we totally misunderstand each other… we operate on alien wave lengths,” Burton wrote in a letter to Elizabeth. Yet, he also wrote her that “If you leave me, I shall have to kill myself. There is no life without you.”

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Part 8. LIFE AFTER RICHARD ER FINAL SPLIT from Burton left a terrible void in her life—but not for long.

In a part she never would have been cast to play in the movies, she took on the role of politician’s wife when, just months later, she married her sixth husband, Senator John Warner of Virginia.Warner spent most of his time in Washington, D.C. while the woman who relished the company of kings, queens, colleagues, and captains of industry remained alone, at his Virginia farm, bored stiff. She put on more than 50 pounds. Cracks appeared in the marriage. “Elizabeth needed someone who was a companion, exciting, a lover,” her friend and Cleopatra co-star, actor Stephen Boyd, observed early. “Not someone who was away most of the time. She was the least likely Washington wife.” The couple divorced.

Addicted to alcohol and prescription pills, Elizabeth courageously admitted her problem.

“In order to live, I had to change that, and I wanted to live. I never apologized. I said I’ve got a problem, and I’m going to take care of it,” she said. Elizabeth became the first Hollywood star to be treated at the Betty Ford Center. There she would meet Larry Fortensky, a construction laborer, who briefly became her eighth and last, most curious, and totally forgettable husband.

Part 9. THE ORIGINAL CHAMPION IN THE FIGHT AGAINST HIV/AIDS

lizabeth left the Betty Ford Center seeking a new focus in her life. “I found there was a useful part to fame that could really contribute to dynamic change,” she said. She determined to be courageous at a time that required courage and chose to be vocal rather than remain silent. She was the first public figure to step forward when others were content to step back. When no one was willing to listen to the stories of those inflicted with HIV/AIDS, she listened. Then she spoke for them—and the world listened. “It’s bad enough that people are dying of AIDS, but no one should die of ignorance,” she said. Elizabeth challenged others to step up and be counted and raised hundreds of millions of dollars for the fight against HIV/AIDS. “She was courageous in standing up and giving a face to this insidious disease at a time when people were banished and shamed by society. She had the balls to say, ‘Look at this.

Look at what has happened to these poor people,’” observed Pierce Brosnan.

“She took the risk and stood up and said, ‘I’m talking about it. Going to ignore me? I don’t think so,’” said Liza Minnelli. “She was personally kind to people. She was stubborn and she was dedicated, and she put her heart into saving people’s lives. She fought incredible battles—and she changed history.”

“There are many people that would not be alive today if it wasn’t for Elizabeth,” Margaret O’Brien commented.

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Fundraiser and co-founded The Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR). That same year, she successfully lobbied President Ronald Regan and Congress for federal funding, and she founded The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation (ETAF), dedicated “to provide direct care, along with love and moral support, to the most vulnerable patients, especially the newborn who, through no fault of their own, were born into the world with this heinous affliction.” Indeed, each year, between 6,000 and 7,000 children are born to HIVinfected mothers in the United States.

Unstoppable, for 30 years Elizabeth worked selflessly to raise public awareness and funds, despite declining health from diabetes, congestive heart failure, the removal of a benign brain tumor, skin cancer, heart surgery, two hip operations, continual back pain, pneumonia and more. There were times she cancelled events and many more when she got out of her sickbed. The public embraced Elizabeth’s activism and world powers recognized her for her humanitarian efforts. France honored her with the Légion d’honneur.

President Clinton awarded her the Presidential Citizens

IMAGE COURTESY OF HERITAGE AUCTIOS/ /HA.COM

Contact sheet of Elizabeth Taylor, from an AIDS relief gala, taken by Andy Hanson.

Taylor founded The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation (ETAF), dedicated “to provide direct care to those infected the world over.

IT’S ALL ABOUT HOPE, KINDNESS, AND A CONNECTION WITH ONE ANOTHER.”

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Elizabeth Taylor with Andy Warhol circa 1978. He began using images of Elizabeth Taylor in early 1962. Her beauty and allure fueled interest in the sordid tragedies of her personal life, which included failed marriages and love affairs.

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Medal, the highest medal awarded to an American citizen. In 2000, Queen Elizabeth II named her a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. When asked what it felt like to be a dame, Elizabeth replied, “Well, I’ve always been a broad, so it wasn’t too far a stretch.” To this day, the foundation that bears her name continues her mission and her dream of one day realizing an AIDS-free world.

“She literally put her money where her mouth was by starting her own foundation,” said Quinn Tivey, a son of Elizabeth’s only child with Mike Todd, who continues his grandmother’s work as co-trustee of her foundation “She galvanized others. She was hands-on, and she was passionate about it.”

On

THE END OF THE STORY

APRIL 29, 2010, wheelchair-bound and in debilitated health, Elizabeth, now 78, flew to London, to attend a gala evening at Buckingham Palace to mark the 60th anniversary of the Welsh College of Music and Drama and the unveiling of a bronze bust of Richard Burton. Overwhelmed by emotion, she said, “Richard would have been so deeply touched by this great honor, as am I.” Accompanying Elizabeth that evening was Elizabeth and Richard’s great friend, Robert Hardy. “She looked at the bust of Richard and started crying. Deep down in her heart was a very special flame which lasted right through to the end. I remember thinking, ‘She’s near the end.’ I saw the spark flickering. I never saw her again. She was the truest, loyalest, funniest friend anybody could ever wish for.”

On March 23, 2011, twenty years after Richard’s death, Elizabeth drew her last breath, surrounded by her family at home. Beside her was the photograph of Richard that had been by her bedside for almost a half-century.

Elizabeth always knew how to make an entrance and she was famous for being late. By her instruction, as if instructed from beyond the grave, her coffin arrived late for her own funeral. Fantastic.

Elizabeth Taylor was the last superstar, the last legend, the last icon. She was a survivor. “I’m a survivor—a living example of what people can go through and survive,” she once remarked.

Those close to her said she never made a big deal out of being drop dead gorgeous. She freely connected with people and touched—and changed—their lives. But perhaps it was her friend, Liza Minnelli, who put it best: “I really loved her. But more than that, I really liked her.”

“Follow your passions, follow your heart,” Elizabeth said, “and the things you need will come.” ■

Ten Lizes, 1963, by Andy Warhol, at the Georges Pompidou National Center for Art and Culture. Warhol used a preexisting publicity still of Taylor as his source material, which he cropped and then enlarged so that the actress literally filled the screen.

Her signature features — her eyes and lips — were accentuated in other of Warhol’s works of Taylor, with colors that hover between vibrant and vulgar. The garish use of “makeup” meant to suggest style and glamor, reinforcing Taylor’s celebrity status.

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est described in their own words, the young, emerging Israelibased atelier, KIM KASSAS couture, designs for the woman who “is not delicate, but rather she is tough.She is not timid, but rather she is courageous. She does not conform to a norm, but rather she stands out in a crowd. She does not follow fashions, but rather she defines her own sense of style. She is not traditional, but rather she is unconventional.”

in the footsteps of Nefertiti

by Lola Port

Kim Kassas harmonizes ancient culture in her distinctively modern “Walk Like an Egyptian” collection— featuring exquisite and unique designs as in her take on “the little black dress,” an over lace bodysuit embellished with a heavily beaded neckpiece depicting the Ancient Egyptian god Horus.

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Curve-hugging, halter-top “mermaid dress” with flanged waist is detailed with chain straps on the open back. Opposite: Ostrich-feathered stole drapes the shoulders over a Scolstiss lace and gold-thread embellished, long-sleeve corset over a delicate crepe, calf-length, midi-shirt.

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A seductive cape with hand embroidered Egyptian symbols of birds and hierglyphics on the lapel, open sleeves and backside. The sheer crop top is fully hand embroidered with gold beads

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A dual fabric mermaid dress of a crocodile-patterned cow leather and silk chiffon back slit opening. The dress has an open back with a belted strap closure and the straight across neckline is accentuated at the chest with hand embroidered Egyptian motifs of gods, which was custom made for this piece. Opposite: A look complete with sheer Solstiss lace pant slip, with a peplum accentuated turtleneck jacket dress with bell sleeves made of crocodile-patterned cow leather and gold hand-embroidered Egyptian hieroglyphic motifs on the upper arms.

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9 A turtleneck gold mermaid dress and matching corset with an accentuated waistline of intricately detailed hand embroidered Solstiss lace.

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A seductive three-piece suit set made up of lightweight crepe trousers and cape with hand embroidered Egyptian symbols =on the lapel open, sleeves and backside. The sheer crop top is fully hand embroided with gold beads

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A dual fabric mermaid dress of a crocodile-patterned cow leather and silk chiffon back slit opening. The dress has an open back with a belted strap closure and the straight across neckline is accentuated at the chest with a hand embroidered Egyptian symbol design which was custom made for this piece. Opposite: Tailored crepe blazer and pleated skirt with exquisitely beaded Horus collarpiece.

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A dramatic hand embroidered tulle turtleneck bodysuit in nude.

Kim Kassas home is in Tel Aviv, with showrooms in New York City, Los Angeles, Walnut Creek, California and soon, Atlanta; and abroad in Romania and Hong Kong.

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the autumn place

Montreal, Canada at night near St. Lawrence River. The St. Lawrence River is at the heart of many Quebec novels including Anne Hébert’s Kamouraska and Réjean Ducharme’s L’avalée des avalés. Canadian singer-songwriter, poet, and novelist, Leonard Cohen, also immortalized the river in his poem Suzanne. In addition, the river is the namesake of Saint-Laurent Herald at the Canadian Heraldic Authority.

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C 10 ombine a hunger for travel, a desire for live events, a longing for old-world charm, and a need for natural beauty, and your next travel destination is clear. Head north.

Montréal offers the charm of Europe’s cafes and culture paired with the bold, creative inventiveness of the Americas into a spectacle that delights and inspires, especially now when so much has been restricted and insular. Here, chic French sensibility meets gregarious spontaneity for a perfect energetic vibe. (It’s the second largest French-speaking city in the world, after Paris.)

From museums to murals, gourmet restaurants to street food, high fashion to boho shops, historic old town to trendy neighborhoods, Leonard Cohen to Arcade Fire, the nearly 380-yearold city has something for everyone, every style, and every mood.

This season, when the landscape boasts a fiery show of foliage in bright crimsons, ambers, and golds, paired with the intense cerulean blues of the autumn sky reflected in the St. Lawrence River, the painterly quality of the city is an invitation to adventure.

Take advantage of Montréal’s expansive green spaces by getting a stunning scenic overview from the city’s heart, Parc du Mont-Royal, designed by Frederick Law Olmstead (who also designed New York’s Central Park). The mountain’s pathways feature majestic trees, scenic pockets with ponds, and a wide variety of flora and fauna. It also is a birdwatcher’s delight, so pack binoculars if you are so inclined. Here too you can visit the iconic Saint Joseph’s Oratory, one of the world’s most visited sacred spaces with more than two million visitors a year. It is a favorite place for watching spectacular sunsets. The mountain’s massive cross is illuminated each night.

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contrast to the old-world charm of the city’s cobblestone streets and classic French architecture, Montréal exuberantly embraces large-scale murals and light displays for a fresh, hip vibe that is decidedly modern.

Soak in the spectacle by day as you take in the larger-than-life works of art throughout the entire city. Much of the work is created each summer as part of MURAL Fest, where often as many as 100 new images are painted each year. Begin with the facades of buildings lining St.-Laurent Boulevard in the Plateau district to best experience these vibrant works of art. After you’ve had your fill of the outdoor displays, be sure to stop by some of the museums in the heart of the city. The vast collections of the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts feature Quebecois and Canadian art through the

Above A portrait of Leonard Cohen adorns the side of a building in Montréal, Canada.

COLIN WOODS / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Opposite: World Trade Center Montréal, a famous shopping centre, office and hotel complex located in the Quartier International District.

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centuries, housed in a former Romanesque Revival church.

Montréal is known for its picturesque greenspaces, adding welcoming spaces to the city’s pathways and squares. At this time of year, they are resplendent with colorful foliage. One of the most popular is the Place d’Armes in the center of Old Montréal. Built in the 17th-century, this historic square, featuring a statue of Montreal’s founder, is bordered by the stunning architecture of the iconic NotreDame Basilica and the Bank of Montréal (whose museum is open to the public).

Montréal’s Jardin Botanique is one of the world’s largest botanical gardens with tens of thousands of species collected into 20 thematic gardens. Here autumn arrives in a kaleidoscope of colors, including the brilliant golden display of yellow birches. Among the property, you’ll find the Chinese Garden, which features century-old ornamental penjing trees from Hong Kong and a Mingdynasty garden surrounding Lac de Rêve. In mid-September through early November, the Chinese Garden is ornamented with hundreds of handmade silk lanterns created for the annual Magic of Lanterns event.

Evening may come earlier north of the border, but in Montréal, the darkness provides a canvas for stunning light displays. The iconic Jacques Cartier Bridge across the St. Lawrence River is one such canvas that hints at more to come. The artificial intelligence programming for the bridge’s ever-changing illumination is dictated by data sets, taking note of climate, the seasons, traffic, and the heartbeat of the city to create its displays.

For a another bird’s eye vantage point, take a spin on the tallest Ferris wheel in Canada, La Grande Roue de Montréal. At nearly 200 feet tall, the view is expansive. The wheel’s gondolas are climate controlled, and create opportunities to enjoy the sights by day. But the nighttime views allow visitors to enjoy a fuller view of the city’s variety of lighting design experiences.

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ld Montréal is illuminated with a series of art projections on nearly two dozen buildings as part of Montréal en Histoires.

Use the free smartphone app to guide your way through this immersive storytelling experience featuring 85 points of interest and 32 augmented reality experiences, which creates a truly interactive installation that gives insight to the evolution of the city throughout history.

A visual experience of another kind is the OASIS Immersion in Montréal’s convention center. More than 100 laser projectors and nearly 120 surround sound speakers create a sensory art entertainment exhibition.

If your walking tour of Old Montréal took you to the spectacular 19thcentury Notre-Dame Basilica by day, it’s worth a return visit in the evening for the Aura sound and light show. The 20-minute spectacle employs the church’s neo-Gothic interior as a canvas, with colorful lights highlighting the vaulted ceiling, columns, arches, and altar with a series of projected images of the natural work all evoking awe.

The geodesic dome of the Biosphere on Saint Helen’s Island also offers an illuminated experience with hues that change every few minutes. Visit by day to see the museum of hydrology inside. The Biosphere is best reached by renting one of the city’s ubiquitous Bixi bicycles to cross the St. Lawrence River to the two islands of Parc Jean-Drapeau. From this vantage point, you can experience the whole complex, which was constructed for the 1967 Montréal Expo, considered one of the last great world’s fairs. Find the Alexander Calder statue “L’Homme” here, created for the expo. After enjoying the statue, turn around for a panoramic view of the city’s downtown skyline framed by the river and the mountain. Here too is the iconic Habitat 67 stacked modular housing, created in a Brutalist style that is often compared to a giant-sized pile of building blocks. The park is the site of many of the city’s signature festivals, and boasts one of eastern Canada’s largest amusement parks. The park celebrates Halloween all October long with a spooky theme.

The city’s 400 miles of bike paths afford an active way to tour the city.

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Astounding autumn view of La Grande de Roue de Montréal, giant observation Ferris wheel located on the Vieux Port de Montréal.

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A favorite is to rent at Old Port and take the nine-mile loop that follows the former industrial corridor of Lachine Canal that has been transformed into a welcoming park. Be sure to treat yourself with a stop by the lively Atwater Market for indulgences from the bakeries, butcher shops, cheese mongers, and cafes.

Montréal is known for its innovative food scene, drawing from the cultural heritage of its multi-ethnic residents as well as the active farm and forest foraging traditions. There are a number of gastronomy tours to get you started, taking you through Chinatown and the markets of Little Italy. Additionally, a popular way to experience the region’s flavors is to spend time taking a cooking class.

Many of the city’s best restaurants are clustered along Rue Notre-Dame West with creative chefs drawing on the region’s food traditions, elevated with modern sensibilities. After dinner, head to the neighborhoods of Little Burgundy and Saint Henri to sip regional libations. Autumn is a perfect time to sample natural and biodynamic wines, as well as the variations of apple ciders served in Montréal’s pubs.

Look for these local wines, artisanal beers, and ciders as treats to pick up on your way home, as well as the Quebecois ice cider (the apple version of ice wine). Find regional gifts like these at Le Marché des Saveurs du Québec, which also has a great selection of other regional selections like maple products, jams, cheeses, and smoked meats. The shop is part of the expansive covered food market Marché Jean Talon in Little Italy.

The high fashion destination of Saint Catherine Street is a must, as is the lively plaza at Jacques-Cartier Square, as well as the arts and crafts market of Marche Bonsecours, housed in a historic domed building.

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the last decade, Montréal has developed a day spa culture, drawing on the region’s botanicals to create a soothing Quebecois experience. In Old Montréal, a boat has been converted to house a sauna, as well as Jacuzzis on the deck, at spa BotaBota for a floating view of the city.

Strom Nordic spa offers a quiet retreat with traditional immersions between hot and cold pools in a natural, secluded setting. And in Old Montréal, a number of spas are tucked in hotels as well as in contemporary settings.

While many of the city’s signature festivals happen in the summer or winter, autumn is the season for the Festival du Nouveau Cinema de Montréal (FNC).

This year is the film festival’s 50th anniversary from October 6-17 and will adopt a hybrid format to screen new cinema to comply with current health standards. As part of the jubilee anniversary, great Canadian classic films also will be digitized and screened along with new films. As part of the festival, there will be free evening outdoor screenings from September 2-5 on the newly opened Tranquille esplanade of the Quartier des spectacles (reservations are required). ■

Montréal’s Jardin Botanique is one of the world’s largest botanical gardens with tens of thousands of species collected into 20 thematic gardens. MEUNIERD / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM Above: The Chinese Garden inside the Jardin Botanique, features century-old ornamental penjing trees from Hong Kong and a Ming-dynasty garden surrounding Lac de Rêve. In midSeptember through early November, the Chinese Garden is ornamented with hundreds of handmade silk lanterns created for the annual Magic of Lanterns event.

EUGENIE ROBITAILLE / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Opposite page: The Biosphere, an environmental museum on St. Helen’s Island during blue hour (dawn). MEUNIERD / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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Sunshine on the altar of La Basilique Notre-Dame de Montréal.

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THE WOMEN WHO INSPIRE INTERVIEWS USBY KAREN FLOYD

Our Inspiring Women have been selected because each has carved out a unique path through life that is recognized by others as exceptional. You will see a commonality in the interviews. These remarkable women have achieved greatness by following their internal compasses while facing the circumstances they are dealt in life. None had a road map. * Copy edited for length and clarity. * Interview videos are available to watch at elysianwomen.com

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NIKKI HALEY

BEA SIBBLIES

Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; former governor of South Carolina, first woman to serve as South Carolina governor, and was the youngest governor in the country; first Indian-American to hold office in the state of South Carolina; author; founder of “Stand for America” advocacy group; named as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World by Time magazine in 2016.

Founder and Managing Partner of BOS Development; award-winning real estate developer in Harlem; on the boards of numerous nonprofit and civic engagement organizations, including Harlem Park to Park and the Urban Design Forum; vice chair of the Higher Heights Leadership Fund; former investment banker at J.P. Morgan Chase; graduate of Yale University and The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

ALVEDA KING

KRISTIN HARMEL

Niece of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and daughter of civil rights activist A.D. King and his wife, Naomi Barber King; civil rights and pro-life activist; minister; best-selling author; accomplished actress and singer-songwriter; former state representative for the 28th District in the Georgia House of Representatives; pastoral associate of Priests for Life; Fox News Channel contributor.

New York Times bestselling, USA Today bestselling, and #1 international bestselling author; co-founder and co-host of the web show and podcast Friends & Fiction; has been published in PEOPLE magazine, Travel + Leisure, Glamour, Every Day with Rachael Ray, and more; former contributor to The Daily Buzz; novels have been translated into 29 languages and sold internationally.

PHOTOGRAPH BY GRACE BELL / HAIR & MAKEUP BY ASHLEY BROOK PERRYMAN

nikki Interview Date: May 3, 2021

With a family name that denotes strength and humility, NIKKI HALEY discovered early on how to push through her fears and find comfort in being the only woman standing. Born Nimrata Nikki Randhawa, she experienced racism firsthand as the only Indian family in rural South Carolina in the ‘70s.

Her mother used this opportunity to imbue in Nikki a lesson that forever guided her in life: if you can focus on your similarities rather than differences, then you can open minds to enact real change.

This lesson, coupled with an unwavering passion to fight for those who cannot fight for themselves, swiftly carried Nikki to the political stage. In 2004, she became the first Indian-American to hold office in South Carolina, and in 2010, she became the first woman to serve as governor in the state, as well as the youngest governor in the country. Following her governorship, she was selected in 2017 to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. No matter the role, Nikki is always fulfilling her purpose by making a difference for the people, the state, and the country she serves.

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What prompted your parents to leave India, reside in Canada and then relocate permanently to the United States?

My mom was a lawyer in India and one of the first female judges nominated to serve on the bench. At that time, it was hard for women to hold those types of positions; you just didn’t see women on the bench. I think that the family members decided that it was not safe for her. And so, while she really wanted to, they didn’t allow her to do it. She was a trailblazer, really, but they just didn’t think she would be adequately protected, and they didn’t want to take any chances.

My father had completed graduate school and wanted to get his PhD. When he was offered that opportunity at the University of British Columbia, they packed up and moved to Canada.

Your father’s given name is Ajit Singh Randhawa. What does Singh mean?

Singh is associated with the Sikh religion. When an Indian man is given the middle name Singh, it has a cultural and a religious connotation. Anytime someone of the Sikh faith has Singh in his or her name, then it defines him or her.

Singh also connotes a warrior and a lion?

Yes. Sikhs are known to be tough, loyal, strong and good fighters.

Are those qualities you share… a part of who you are?

I am very much a part of my parents. My dad taught me strength and grace, and my mom taught me unbelievable willpower. The two of them geared me to be who I am and what I continue to be.

Four children. What number are you, and where were you born, respectively?

I am number three. My oldest brother was born in India. My sister was born in Canada. My little brother and I were born in South Carolina.

Today, India is facing the horrors of Covid-19, leading the world in deaths.

With your worldview, what can you share with us?

Sadness. The one thing about India is it is an amazing democracy.

They elect their leaders and have freedoms that you want to see in an Asian country. I think the thing that is so sad is that when so many people are in such a confined space, the results are more severe. What we have experienced here in America is daunting.

Losing 3000 people in one day in India just hurts. I know that is the case for my parents, as well. I have talked to them about it, and I see

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the sadness in them. When you think of your birthplace, you never want to think of suffering. It always tugs a little bit at their hearts.

Isn’t pain universal?

Yes. When you look at shootings and movements like Black Lives Matter, I think people don’t get what is at the heart of the emotion: that it hurts to see something happen to someone that looks like you, right?

It is a real, deep thing. So, when somebody sees a total stranger get hurt, if that person looks like you, you can relate. After 9/11, it was scary for my dad to just be in his car or go to the gas station because he wears a turban. He put a flag on the back of his car just to show people he was American. He did that for his safety. I remember there was a gas station owner, and I think it was in Wisconsin, and he wore a turban.

People went in there and beat him. I felt such pain because he looked like my dad, and it was like my dad. I am very sensitive when people feel racial pain. At its core, I believe it is because they can identify with those people that look like them. Therefore, in India when we see the devastation of Covid-19, I think it is painful for my parents.

Who is your greatest mentor?

Definitely my mom, because she was my only female example of incredible strength. Growing up, I didn’t see a lot of strong women.

My mom came from a very wealthy lifestyle. In Canada, my parents started all over with $8 in their pocket. My mom worked three jobs.

She was taking care of a disabled child, working at the post office and selling Avon while my dad was in school. When they came to the United States, my dad got a job as a professor. My mom needed a job, so she taught sixth grade social studies. Because she was missing being at home, she decided to start a small business that she would open after school. She sold products from India. At first, she sold them out of the living room of our home, and then she expanded it into an office space. I watched as she turned that tiny little office space into a bigger store. She added on clothing, and then she added on accessories. Before we knew it, a 10,000 square foot store was doing extremely well. She just never stopped at being persistent.

Did she work from dawn until dusk?

She always worked. Both of my parents always worked. They had a want and a drive to make sure that their children had a

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WHAT LESSONS DID YOU LEARN FROM WATCHING THEM (YOUR PARENTS) TOIL EVERY SINGLE DAY TO BUILD A BETTER LIFE FOR YOU AND YOUR SIBLINGS?

Nikki, in her father’s arms, posing with her parents and siblings for a family portrait in the mid’70s. Opposite: Nikki on stage for the Little Miss Bamburg pageant. She and her sister were disqualified for not fitting into the category of either the White queen or the Black queen.

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. . . THEY NEVER SAW BOUNDARIES IN ANYTHING THAT THEY DID . . .THEY NEVER HAVE STOPPED LEARNING. THEY UNDERSTOOD THAT IF YOU DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO DO SOMETHING, YOU WENT AND FIGURED OUT HOW TO DO IT. better life than they did. Everything they did was for us. They always worked and were always creative. They did this against a backdrop of not having it easy. It was a tough time to go through, the late sixties, early seventies, in South Carolina, in a rural town.

They were doing things without a lot of help. They didn’t have a lot of friends. They were the only Indian family in that town. So it was not easy, but they just were so determined.

Do you think that leadership is easy?

No. What lessons did you learn from watching them toil every single day to build a better life for you and your siblings?

If something didn’t work, they just kept going. They kept trying; they never stopped. They never saw boundaries in anything that they did. My mom did not know anything about American clothes.

She did not know what a girdle was, but after 30 years, she owned one of the top high-end women’s stores in the state. It was one of those things. She just was determined to learn. They never have stopped learning. They understood that if you didn’t know how to do something, you went and figured out how to do it. You read something else, or you saw something else or you found someone else. They also thought that education was the key to everything.

Your mother and father have always been supportive of you. At some point, they became your village. Tell me about that.

Interestingly, Indian families always want their children to become a doctor, lawyer or engineer. I clearly didn’t become one. While my sister was fascinated by the business and my brothers were doing their own thing, my mother wanted me to stay close to home and close to the family. In the store, she saw me wandering around, not interested in the clothes, gifts or merchandise, like my sister.

Our bookkeeper was leaving. She had given my mom notice, and we had not found anybody else to fill that position. One day, she said, “I’m really getting worried. We’re running out of time. You need to hire someone.” I happened to be walking by, and my mom literally grabbed my arm and said, “Train her.”

The bookkeeper said, “Raj, I can’t do that. She is 13 years old.”

My mom responded, “If you teach her, she will do it.” That is how and when I found my love of numbers. She taught me how to do everything financial. I was doing the deposits, cutting the checks and deciding what we paid. I was looking at all of those things.

From that experience, I learned the value of a dollar. When times were tough, we stretched, and we had to prioritize. When times were good, we didn’t celebrate because we knew that there would be tough times again. I loved numbers because numbers tell a story.

If they don’t tell the story you want, you figure out how to make those numbers different. It was a love that I found.

Rural Bamberg, South Carolina. What age were you the first time you realized that there was an undercurrent of racism?

Five.

And tell me about that?

It wasn’t until I went to school that I felt it. Remember, we were the only Indian family in town. I always say we weren’t white enough to be White. We weren’t black enough to be Black. I knew we were different because my dad wore a turban. At the time, my mom was wearing a sari, and no one else was. I saw the looks that we got. At five, I would be teased on the playground for being Brown, and I would go home and tell my mom. My mom would say, “Your job is not to show them how you’re different. Your job is to show them how you’re similar.” It is actually amazing how that lesson on the playground has played out throughout my life. Whether in the corporate world, as governor, as ambassador, when you see challenges, if you first talk about what you have in common, people let their guard down, and then you can take on the solution. Every time I have had a challenge or a road bump, I define what we had in common and show people in what ways we are similar. It sounds like a small lesson, but it was actually a big lesson in life for me.

Is that core to your success as UN Ambassador, this idea of finding a common ground and then mitigating the periphery?

Yes. When I had to negotiate North Korea, I thought, how do you

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PHOTOGRAPH BY GRACE BELL / HAIR & MAKEUP BY ASHLEY BROOK PERRYMAN

I WEAR HEELS. IT’S NOT FOR A FASHION STATEMENT, IT’S...

AMMUNITION.” —NIKKI HALEY

negotiate with the Chinese that don’t want to do it? How do you get the other countries to come along with the Chinese? What I did was I said first, you have to understand their fears. I always think you have to understand your opponent’s fears. I knew what they were; they were worried about two things. They were worried about war on the peninsula. And they were worried that if the Kim regime fell, all those North Koreans would go into China, and they didn’t want that. So, after I understood their fears, I started talking to them about how we were similar. We didn’t want war. We, too, didn’t want regime change.

We wanted to make sure that those things weren’t going to happen.

We knew that if we could get North Korea to stop testing ballistic missiles, the world would be safer. So, when we could talk about the core issues, we could start drilling down into the “how.”

Many lessons came from your childhood. Tell me about “the pageant.”

My sister first told the story about the pageant. At the time, parents put their child in the Little Miss Bamberg pageant. It was a big event for a town of 2,500. Someone told my mom she should put her girls in the pageant, so she put both of us in. At the time, they had a Black queen, and they had a White queen, so they took my parents to the side. They disqualified us because they didn’t know which category to put us in.

They felt if they put us in the White category, then the White families

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would be mad. If they put us in the Black category, then the Black families would be mad. Instead, they disqualified us. My mom said, “She has been practicing her song” (because there was a talent component), “Can she at least sing her song?” My song was, This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land. I sang, they gave me a beach ball, and they sent us on our way. I never did another pageant after that, by the way.

Do you think that your experiences gave you a sensitivity to the rawness of the racial tensions in our country?

Yes, very much so.

Removing the Confederate flag from the state capital was under your watch as governor. Tell me how that interplayed with the Mother Emanuel AME Church massacre.

When I came into office, I was interested in whether we could bring down the Confederate flag for multiple reasons. The NCAA wasn’t allowing us to have tournaments and was not opening up the state. I actually spoke to some prominent Republicans and Democrats that had been in South Carolina during the last battle to bring down the flag back in 2000. The Black Democrats and the White Republicans both said, “Don’t go there.” They saw how hateful it was, and they didn’t want to relive that.

They remembered the days of security, people hating each other. We also needed a two-thirds vote to bring it down, making it almost impossible, if

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there was no will, so we left it alone. No one ever really brought it up.

With the church shooting, even then that was not my first instinct.

We had just had a shooting, and it was the first shooting in a place of worship. I thought, no child is ever going to be safe going to church again if something like this could happen. If you can have 12 people go to Bible study on a Wednesday night, this could happen. I’ll never get over the fact that on that night, someone showed up that didn’t look like them, didn’t sound like them, didn’t act like them. They didn’t throw him out, and they didn’t call the cops. Instead, they pulled up a chair and prayed with him for an hour. Think about that. As they bowed their heads in the last prayer, he began to shoot.

People like Ethel Lance who had lost her daughter two years prior to breast cancer and had a broken heart. She would go around Mother Emanuel Church, cleaning the church, singing “One day at a time.

Sweet Jesus. That’s all I ask of you. Give me the strength to do every day what I have to do.” Tywanza Sanders, our youngest victim, had just graduated college and had the whole world in front of him. On that night, he stood in front of his 87-year-old great aunt Susie and said, “You don’t have to do this. We mean no harm to you.” Or it was people like Cynthia Hurd whose life motto was simply to be kinder than necessary. That’s who these people were. They loved their family and

loved their church. They loved their community. When this happened, the whole state was in shock. Two days later, in his manifesto, the killer held up the Confederate flag. That was it. The national media zoomed in wanting to define this state. They wanted to talk about racism in South Carolina, they wanted to talk about the death penalty, they wanted to talk about gun violence. I remember at the time strongarming them saying, “We have nine funerals. There will be a time and place where we talk about this, but it is not now.” Then the manifesto came out. I knew something had to happen. Michael had been on military duty, and it had been an upsetting few days. I remember texting him saying, “I have got so much in my head. I need to talk to you.” When he came home, I told him that I thought that we had to try and bring the Confederate flag down, and he said, “Then do it.” I brought my staff in, and I said, “I want to have four meetings on Monday. Don’t tell them what this meeting is about because I know they won’t show up. I want to meet with lead Republicans, lead Democrats, the federal delegation and community leaders.” When they came into that office in each one of those meetings, I said, “At three o’clock today, I’m going to call for the Confederate flag to come down. If you will stand with me, I will forever be grateful. And if you won’t, I won’t tell anyone you were ever in this room.”

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I had my husband with me that day because I thought he was going to be the only one standing with me. But we had Blacks, we had Whites, we had Republicans, we had Democrats, and they stood together. We said, it’s time. Half of the state, when they saw the Confederate flag, saw it as heritage, as ancestry and as patriotism.

The other half of the state saw it as hate. My job wasn’t to judge either side. My job was to carry them to the next level. My job was to say, “How do we get us to a better place?” If I had judged either side, none of it would have worked. And then we had to get a two-thirds vote.

Did you know you would get a two-thirds vote?

I knew we had to get a two-thirds vote. I knew that there was no way we could not get it, or the whole state would fall apart. It was a tough fight. It was right after Ferguson so trying to hold the state together was hard. However, we did it by reminding people of the goodness that we have in us and not letting the country define us. The Senate was actually easy because they had just lost their brother, Senator Clementa Pinckney, who was one of them. You couldn’t stand in that chamber and not see the black drape over the desk and the red rose on there and not be moved by it. The house was very hard.

There was tremendous leadership that came from that experience.

Yes. It brought out the biggest passion in everyone. At the end of the day, the passion that mattered the most were the people of South Carolina. We didn’t have protests; we had vigils. We didn’t have riots; we had hugs. The people of South Carolina stepped up in a way that truly is extraordinary. We saw that flag come down.

If you look back at your service as governor, was that a defining moment, your legacy?

I don’t think that defined my legacy though people have talked about the Confederate flag coming down as a legacy. During my time as governor, we had a hurricane, a thousand-year flood, a school shooting and a church shooting. There were so many tragedies throughout my tenure. When you are leading, your goal is to protect the people and move them as much as you can. I think that people like to look at the Confederate flag as a movement forward. It brings me some sadness because I think that moment belongs to those families because they were able to forgive a killer. They were able to move on in a remarkable way. I want the spotlight to be upon them because they truly were the heroes. Our state might have fallen apart had they gotten angry or said angry words, but they chose grace.

You have commented that Africa has both tremendous potential and opportunity, but also is a real threat to world stability. Do you still believe that?

I do. I never went to the pretty places, those places where the

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other cabinet members went. The places I went were the opposite, and you learn so much in these places. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, they use rape as a weapon of war. In South Sudan, I sat with crying mothers whose babies were literally taken from their arms and thrown into fires right in front of them. When you hear those stories, you see how desperately they want elections, and you see how desperately they want education for their kids. You look at those populations and know if something doesn’t change, those young children will grow up to be angry and resentful. The only thing worse than angry and resentful is uneducated because that is what leads to terrorism and causes problems in the world.

I am worried about what is going to happen to Africa. There are so many opportunities there. They desperately want to have free and fair elections, and they desperately want to have more. It is my hope and prayer that they get there. I think America always has to keep its eyes on Africa for opportunity purposes, but also for safety purposes.

South Sudan was particularly difficult for you to visit. What happened when you boarded the plane to depart?

There are so many challenges, like not having clean drinking water or having girls confined—they can’t leave the camp because they will get raped—or having boys that are literally taken to be child soldiers.

There was one story I was told where two brothers were abducted and taken to be child soldiers. Their mother was kidnapped, they put her on a tree, and they raped her in front of the boys. Then they gave each of the boys a gun and told them to shoot, and they had to keep shooting her until she died. It was their way of disconnecting these children emotionally from their family. When you hear those types of horrors, can you imagine all the trauma these kids have gone through? We would go to these camps, hear these stories and find out what had happened. Then you see these kids, and they have the happiest faces. They don’t know what they don’t have. When I boarded the plane to leave, there was such sadness because you wanted to help them. You realize your job is not done. You feel like there is more that could be done. And so, it is hard.

How do you reconcile that? We are sitting here in one of the most privileged areas of the world, and we both acknowledge gratitude and blessings, but how do you reconcile the horrors of the world and what you’ve seen?

You never forget the faces. You never forget the voices. You never forget the stories. They haunt you always because there is more that has to be done.

WE ARE SITTING HERE IN ONE OF THE MOST PRIVILEGED AREAS OF THE WORLD, AND WE BOTH ACKNOWLEDGE GRATITUDE AND BLESSINGS, BUT HOW DO YOU RECONCILE THE HORRORS OF THE WORLD AND WHAT YOU’VE SEEN?

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ELYSIAN Publisher, Karen Floyd, with Nikki during the Inspiring Woman interview.

PHOTOGRAPH BY GRACE BELL / HAIR & MAKEUP BY ASHLEY BROOK PERRYMAN

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How do you do more?

Tell their stories. When you are in government, you push policy, right? So, we pushed for better peacekeeping operations. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, we pushed for another election because the leader wasn’t leaving. We returned a couple of times to make that happen in South Sudan. We met with the president, and I showed him pictures of children. I said, “Look at these kids.

You never leave this palace to see these kids, but they know you.

And they’re looking to you to give them a better life.”

You have a gift of building teams, something noteworthy early in your career. How do you find philosophical alignment and then retain loyalty?

Part of it is gut. When I look at someone as a team member, I am looking at who would be a good partner on the team to make sure that we can all work together. You want knowledge, you want skill, but those are the easy things. The trust, the loyalty and your gut feeling are what matters at the end of the day. You also want team members you can grow because you want to grow as a team. You don’t want to have the perfect team but the ability to grow into a better team. Chemistry and making sure that the skills and experience complement each other are critical. I think having people who understand trust and loyalty and what it means to grow together and have each other’s back has

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always been very important to me. My team is everything. I am only as good as the team that I have around me, which means the team has to be able to tell me when I’m right and tell me when I’m wrong. They must also be able to understand that we have to be flexible as we move forward. I invest a lot in our team.

All leaders experience team members and partners that exit. How do you deal with that?

Well, it does happen. You have people that for some reason or another move on or part ways. It always is painful because my team is my family. I very much look at them like family. I love them.

I care about them in good times and bad times. So anytime you have that it is painful, but then we also keep track of everyone.

Team Haley has grown from this tiny little group to a much bigger group. Those that were in my first governor’s race know if they ever need anything, they can look to the team at the UN and any cross alignment. They all know to help each other. It’s like our own little network of helping each other. That Is what I want for them.

How big is your Team Haley today, and where do they reside?

15 people and they are all over the country.

Is this a result of the new norm due to Covid-19?

We had an office in New York where we were all congregating.

During Covid-19, everybody worked from home, so they dispersed

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YOU NEVER FORGET THE FACES. YOU NEVER FORGET THE VOICES. YOU NEVER FORGET THE STORIES. THEY HAUNT YOU ALWAYS BECAUSE THERE IS MORE THAT HAS TO BE DONE.

Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz (R) shows US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley (C) photos as she visits the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray in Jerusalem’s Old City on June 7, 2017.

AFP PHOTO / GALI TIBBON (PHOTO CREDIT SHOULD READ GALI TIBBON/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

from New York. Some went to Florida, DC, Maryland and South Carolina. We all just work by Zoom, but we also meet once a month.

Now, we have moved the offices to DC where a lot are congregated.

Covid-19 changed the way we do business You wrote, “I never understood the fear that many diplomats have about being isolated. My view was, and still is, if your position is right, you should not be ashamed of it. You should be proud to stand alone within it if you must.” You’ve taken many “alone” steps in your life. Where does that come from?

Usually fighting for other people. The times I stand alone are when people are depending on me. It is what gives me the strength to do it. I know there is a greater good and a bigger story. It is not that you seek these moments out, but when they present themselves, you have to fight for others. You have to push the ball forward.

Do you have fear and, if so, around what?

I do have fear. Everybody has the fear of failure, the fear of letting people down, the fear of not being able to accomplish what needs to be accomplished. But the one thing I learned early on, the lesson I tell every young person I see, is to learn how to push through the fear. If I didn’t push through the fear, I never would have run for office, in a primary for the state house, against a 30-year incumbent. If I didn’t push

through the fear, I wouldn’t have become governor. If I didn’t push through the fear, I wouldn’t have taken the job as UN ambassador. You have to be willing to push through the fear because when you do that, you learn what it’s like to live life. If you don’t push through the fear, you never know what could have been.

You have witnessed tremendous atrocities, abject poverty, forgiveness and opulence. How do you calibrate and remain balanced?

You count your blessings. I wake up every morning and thank God for life. I go to bed every night, thanking God for the smallest, to the biggest things of that day. The only way you get through it is by counting your blessings and being as humble as you possibly can. To know that your job is to make other people’s lives better in whatever way you can, you must do that.

Is it a conscious practice of humility or is it a part of who you are naturally?

I think I’ve always been like that. My full name is Nimrata Nikki Randhawa. Nikki, my middle name, means “humble little one.” My parents taught me that humility. I had everything I needed in life, but I felt life around me. I think when you come from tough circumstances, the challenges are always hard.

When you feel that, it makes you humble because you never

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forget what that five-year-old girl felt like. It also reminds you that you never want anyone else to feel that feeling. I ended up fighting for people who I think can’t fight for themselves. I end up trying to keep people from having pain because I know what that pain felt like. I think that is the reason that I am humble. I always remind myself to stay humble.

How do you clear your head amidst the chatter?

Sitting outside makes life feel not so hard. If I listen to music, it takes me away.

You wrote, “At every point in my life, I’ve noticed that if you speak your mind and you’re strong about it, a small percentage of people will resent you.

The way they deal with their resentment is to throw charges at your lives to see what sticks. And they do this to diminish you. Women especially have been dealing with this for a long time.” Why is that?

I don’t know why it is. I stopped trying to figure out the why and just have accepted that it will happen and that it does happen. I think it’s easier if you don’t complain about it, and you just expect it, and you fight through it.

What’s the antidote?

To keep working. You are never going to please people all the time, or you are not moving the ball. There will always be a percentage of people that don’t like me and don’t like what I stand for. They don’t like how I do things or find me to be a threat in some way, shape or form. I can’t worry about that. I just keep my head down and keep working.

You’ve been described as both a disruptor and now as a change agent. Is that the same thing?

I think a disruptor is one that when you see something wrong, you say it and you blow it up. I think I have always been that. Change agent is the other side of the disruptor; you first blow it up, and then you change it and fix it, and you make it better. I believe they go hand in hand.

Politics aside, what is your legacy?

I hope that people look at whatever I touched or whatever I did, and know I did the best job that I could do, and that people were better for it. I hope that people can feel like my being there made a better place for them. Whether that’s a better country, a better world, just a better state . . . that people felt that everything I touched made a difference.

If you had a choice of being in corporate America, on the world stage, in a secondary/supportive role or philanthropy, what would you choose?

I want to lift people up. That is where I get my motivation.

Anything that I can do that can lift people up and make a difference, to me, is moving the ball. Moving the ball doesn’t mean winning either. Moving the ball happens when other people benefit because you were there.

What is your avatar, your life focus here forward?

People. If I am around children with our education foundation, then I’m focused on those kids. If I am in South Sudan and I see those mothers, then I’m focused on those moms. I focus on whatever is in front of me. I soak it in. I love to see how small businesses make things work. I love to see what people care about. I feel the pain of other people deeply, and I want to stop their pain. If there is something I can fix, I want to do it. I have very little patience for things that can be changed to better others and are not.

Give your younger self a word of wisdom or a piece of advice that might have helped you in some way.

I think I would have just said, “It’s going to be okay.” It was always hard, and it was always scary, but that piece of advice would be the one thing that would have helped me, just to know it was going to be okay.

If you could ask God a question, what would that one question be?

That’s a tough one, but what is my purpose?

Nimrata Nikki Randhawa “humble little one” and Nikki Haley “loyal, strong and warrior-like,” I believe you know that purpose. ■

Above: Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley looks at a picture of the martyrs at Jallianwala Bagh on November 15, 2014 in Amritsar, India. Nikki was interested in promoting business ties between her state and Indian companies. “India is my second home. Attracting investments from overseas companies is my job, but building business ties with Indian companies is my personal desire,” she said. Opposite: Nikki along with her husband, Michael Haley, paying obeisance at Golden Temple in Amritsar, India.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY SAMEER SEHGAL/HINDUSTAN TIMES VIA GETTY IMAGES

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PHOTOGRAPH BY LISA PAVLOVA

BEA Interview Date: November 4, 2020

While growing up in Jamaica, BEA SIBBLIES was unknowingly learning the distinct skills to become the revolutionary real estate developer she is today. With her father, she spent many days in the garden (landscaping) and, beside her mother, she balanced the family checkbook (finance), selected furniture for new properties (interior design) and studied with her before school (discipline). Following attendance at the United World College in Canada and studying at Yale University, she also found a love for beautiful campuses. This inspired her to focus on educational facilities in her company, BOS Development, a community-focused real estate development and brokerage firm based in Harlem. Her projects have received numerous accolades and, more importantly, have a lasting impact on the community at large. Now, Bea is ready to take it to the next level. Underway are plans for an ambitious creative hub for arts and culture in Harlem that will ultimately transform the entire fashion industry as well as promote sustainability.

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As a child, what was your first job?

I helped my parents in the garden. My dad was in his mid-fifties when I was born. By the time I was two or three, he retired as a public health inspector. He would get up every morning and garden religiously. I spent a lot of time with him in our garden. My mom would grow flowers and orchids, but I would always stay with my dad. My father would weed the grass by hand. No weed killer.

In Jamaica, we have a weed called the “love bush,” which wraps itself around the plants. My first job was to keep the “love bush” at bay by untangling it from the plants in the garden.

Were your mother and father both native to Jamaica and do you identify as Jamaican?

I am more affected by the experiences my parents had rather than their lineage. My father was born in 1917 and came to New York in the Second World War when they were looking for additional labor to compensate for so many men who had gone to war. It was a work opportunity for him, and he worked at Macy’s.

When I was growing up, people would ask me where I was from.

My theory was that my parents had repatriated and never quite got their Jamaican accent back. Maybe that is why I am here in Harlem. I have always thought of myself as a creature of the world, and I wanted to experience the world they lived in.

How old were you when you lost your mother?

I was 17 when she passed. I recently was asked about my mom,

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so I called my oldest sister and asked her because I didn’t really know my mother. My mother worked in the government for the equivalent of the Department of Labor, in training. My sister said something really interesting: my mother liked to travel. She became a little teary-eyed because when my mother had finally achieved the level of success where she could travel, she became ill. My parents were quite a bit older, so I only met one grandfather and never met my other grandparents. I was not shaped by my extended family but more by the life experiences of my parents.

At 15, you ended up in Canada. How did that happen?

I attended a Catholic public school in Jamaica called Immaculate Conception High School, one of the best all-girls schools. One day there was an announcement on the PA system about a scholarship for the United World Colleges. I thought it sounded interesting because it provided one scholarship per year for the entire country.

Someone from my school had won it sometime before. I was 14 and in the fifth grade, which is equivalent to 11th grade in the US. I was very sheltered and overly protected, so much that my parents did not let me go to parties. I decided to do the interview as practice for something later in life. So, I went on this “practice interview” as a first step in applying for this scholarship. When I arrived, the smartest kids in the country were lined up in this conference room, all prepping. They were nervous because it was a big deal, but for me, it was just a practice interview. I wasn’t nervous, went in and

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there was a big table filled with people conducting the interview. A couple of weeks later while I was at school, I was handed a piece of paper saying that I had won the scholarship.

How did that go with your parents?

I remember it vividly. I walked home, through the garden, and through the kitchen door. My mom was standing in the kitchen, and she came out to meet me. I said, “Mom, you won’t believe this.

Haha. I won that scholarship.” I never thought they would send me because I never was allowed to go anywhere. She did not say a word but took the letter from my hand. She went to see my father who used to sit on the veranda at that time of day. Ten minutes later, she walked back toward me and while I was still in the yard, she says three words. “You are going.” She sent her baby. And that was it. I went. That is how I ended up in Canada.

Were you scared?

I suppose I was more scared of the process. I had never been on an airplane. I remember the first time I saw an escalator was when I was in the airport. I had my suitcase and the boom box my sister gave me. When I stepped on the escalator for the first time, I literally fell on my rear and down the steps of the escalator on my

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butt because I had never ridden one before. I was more scared of the escalator than I was of traveling. As an adult, looking back, my lack of fear was probably because my entire childhood I heard the stories of my parents’ travels.

Age 15, alone in Canada, how did the next two years change your life?

I would not be the person that I am today without those experiences. There are two distinct things that shaped me. The first is my family and the values they instilled in me. The other thing that shaped me was the values of the school I went to in Canada. United World College is a very unique school that is a part of a network of colleges. When I went, there were six colleges. There are more colleges now. I have hosted, for the past five years, the New York holiday party in this very room. Unfortunately, because of Covid-19, we did not host the holiday party last year. The United World College in Canada has 200 kids, a hundred new kids each year. When I went, it was a hundred kids from 60 countries, a hundred boys, a hundred girls. We lived in five houses of 40 kids each, 20 girls on one floor, 20 boys on another floor. There were no keys, there were no locks.

And there was only one rule, no drugs. It was and is taken very seriously. If you are caught with drugs, you are on the next plane to your country of origin. To be in an environment at 15 years old with kids from the entire world, where you are effectively treated as an adult, expected to behave like an adult, with the best teachers, was great. Even more important was who they selected.

WHAT LIFE LESSON CAN YOU IMPART?

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ELYSIAN Publisher, Karen Floyd, with Bea at her home in Harlem, New York, during the Inspiring Woman interview. Below: ELYSIAN’s Social Media Specialist, Haley Hudson, captures shots of the interview, while Bea’s pup relaxes on the couch.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY LISA PAVLOVA

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school campus in Jamaica was pretty grand too.

Yale was your first, face-to-face, real-life example of racism?

Yes. Because Jamaica’s motto is “Out of Many One People.”

You never experienced racism when you were in Canada?

In Canada, we were in the middle of the boonies, and I was in school with kids from 60 countries. If you wanted to organize by race in the United World College, it wasn’t really possible. At Yale, the dining tables were organized by race, and it was just “confusing.”

What year was that?

I graduated in the class of 1990. I entered there in 1986. I was caught in between because I was a Jamaican girl, and I wasn’t white. I am a bridge for “in between.”

Do individuals born in the Jamaican culture see no divide with race?

The fact of the matter is that there is separation and segregation, but it is more based on class. It just so happens that because of the legacy of slavery, the upper classes are whiter, and the lower classes are darker or of African origin, but it’s not exclusively so.

You are the last born of six children. Have you been the most successful of your siblings in the world’s eye?

I have attended the most prestigious schools. When I was growing up, my parents, bought an acre of land in prime real estate in Jamaica, the equivalent of Times Square. I get my gumption from my mom who went to the bank and secured a large amount of money to build two family houses and four apartments. They did this while I was growing up. I look back at the way my mother influenced me in silence. I didn’t understand it then, but I would balance my mom’s checkbook at the end of every month. I knew how much money we had, how much money we didn’t have. I had complete visibility on the finances of the household.

What are your fondest memories of your mother and father?

When I think of my mom, unlike most people, I do not think of warm, fuzzy. That’s not my memory. My memory of my mom is sitting on the porch going through the checkbook every month. And we had this odd silence. We did almost everything without talking. I don’t have a lot of memory of what they said. I have more memory of what they did. My mom had me sit beside her, probably because I was the smallest, at very crucial financial times. It is funny because

Bea with Melissa Davis (L), a Wharton classmate, and her friend, Suzanne Stern (R), on the roof of the 88 Morningside building in New York, which was BOS Development’s debut development venture. Opposite top of page: Photographs of Bea’s father (L), daughter (C) and mother (R) found on the mantelpiece located in Bea’s living room.

PHOTOGRAPH BY GRACE BELL

PHOTOGRAPH BY LISA PAVLOVA

Have you kept up with those early friendships and did you establish any life-long relationships from that experience?

The United World College has a different kind of impact on you. When you see someone that you went to school with it is as though you saw them yesterday, but I think a lot of people don’t stay in touch because, at the end of the year, we blow up and go back to our 60 countries. What characteristic I find in all of us is that we share and create this ability to connect.

When they select students from these 60 different countries, what is it that they are looking for?

So, we used to say it in jest, but it is that we were there to build peace and international understanding, and it feels pretty heavy, right? One of the most important people there for me, who changed my life, was my economics professor. Coincidentally, he changed my life, not by being my economics professor, but by the films he picked every Friday night. We would gather in the auditorium and watch the community films. For a bunch of 15 to 19-year-olds, they were intense and covered pretty serious topics. We watched movies about the Killing Fields, the Holocaust and more, to focus our attention on peace and international understanding. It was really a conversation about complex things that are going on in the world.

Injustices within societies?

And human nature.

The flaws of human nature?

There were happy movies. But they did not shy away from the human potential on a very wide spectrum.

You ended up doing your undergraduate studies at Yale University at 17 years old. How did that happen?

Our school is pretty well known in Canada, so if you filled out an application, there typically was a really good university interested.

I had a feeling I wanted to come to America because my dad had been here. I went back to Jamaica during break, pre-internet, went to the US embassy and asked to speak to someone, so I could get the name of top US universities. I think they gave me a book, and I wrote down the name of top US universities. I also wanted to know which universities had a good financial aid package because my parents were poor. They couldn’t afford to send me to college. The United World College—UWC was a full scholarship. I selected Harvard, Yale, MIT and Rice University in Texas because my sister was in Texas, (Rice University did not have a generous financial aid program). I applied to MIT, Yale and Harvard, and I got into Yale and MIT. I didn’t really know the difference between any of the schools. I just applied, and they sent the brochures in the mail to my campus. I knew that MIT was more science, and I am both left brain and right brain. Yale was more humanities and more about economics. Initially, because my parents and our culture focused more on the sciences, I accepted MIT. I actually put it in the mail and later fished the admissions letter out and replaced it with Yale. That was all I knew until I was on the airplane heading to Yale University. That was my first time in America.

Was that a culture shock?

The thing that shocked me about Yale, you might find surprising, was when I went into the dining hall, the dining tables were organized by race. That’s what surprised me because I had never experienced that before. I had been to really good schools all my life in Jamaica. My parents really sacrificed, and then I tested into the best high schools. I went to this beautiful campus but being on a beautiful campus was something that I literally had experienced all my life. I was fortunate in that way. That is why now in my business, I focus on building educational facilities.

I know for a kid from a poor family, middle-class, working-class family, the grandeur of going into a grand space every day. I knew how that affected my perception of what is possible because that is where I went to school every day. Yale is grand, but my Catholic

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I am sitting here under her picture. I think about what I do as a real estate developer. So much of what I do I learned sitting at my mother’s side to manage the family and business checkbook. She went to college when I was young. She would come home, cook dinner, go to college, go to bed, wake up and study. I would wake up and study with her. As a kid, I would actually do my homework in the morning with my mother. An ability to work alone is a key part of what I do as a developer; the ability to structure yourself around productivity is key. I have my office upstairs and work at home. I work at two, 3:00 o’clock in the morning.

What did you major in at Yale?

Economics and political science And then?

I worked on Wall Street for 10 years. Two years at Morgan Stanley, eight years at J.P. Morgan.

Give me one hardcore lesson from working on Wall Street.

No typos.

Seriously?

No typos. Yes, because a typo could be a typo on a word or on a number. Right. And you could get the trade wrong or right.

For me, that is precision.

Precision. Then what happened?

When I came to the US, I was not a citizen. When I worked at

LISTEN. IT IS WHAT I SAY TO EVERYONE THAT I MENTOR. THE REASON I THINK I AM AN EFFECTIVE BUILDER IS I LISTEN FOR THE YOU IN EVERY PERSON. AND TO ANSWER YOUR NEXT QUESTION, HOW CAN I DO WHAT I DO, WHICH IS SO HARD? BECAUSE I HAVE LISTENED TO MYSELF. I LISTEN EVERY MORNING FOR WHO THE REAL ME IS. IF I AM BEING THE REAL ME EVERYDAY, THEN I KNOW I HAVE THE ANGELS ON MY BACK.

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J.P. Morgan, I was on an H1B Visa, and they ultimately applied for my Green Card which I received, year seven. Around the time I got my green card, there was a merger between J.P. Morgan and Chase. At the one-year anniversary of the merger, they rationalized the staffing, and a lot of the legacy J.P. Morgan people, including myself, were let go. I remember my boss, who is still a friend, being heartbroken because she was legacy J.P. Morgan. She was so upset to let me go, but I felt that it was my time. I was never on Wall Street because it was my passion. I was on Wall Street almost as an extension of my academic training. In my career there, I learned, in addition to precision, a fundamental skill in structured finance.

I was focused on Latin America, doing structured finance, looking at deals, doing credit cards, mortgage backs and credit derivatives.

My role was very multidisciplinary, which I was drawn to. I had built a good skill set of literally being able to see the same techniques across multiple platforms. In that same way, as a developer, I don’t just develop one type of asset. If you look at my resume, you’ll see that I did many different things on Wall Street. I was a researcher, analyst, in corporate finance and on and on. The best way to make money on Wall Street is to keep doing the same thing over and over, but my skills were for the complex, one-offs. My boss would ask me, “Beatrice, that deal that you just did, couldn’t you just do another one?” I never did a deal twice. At that time, I felt like I had gotten as much as possible from the experience. I had seen the game at its highest level. The only other thing for me to do was to do the deals I had done, over and over again, so there was nothing else to learn.

Wharton?

I got the notification of severance the Friday before September 11th. I had not completely left J.P. Morgan and still had the J.P. Morgan ID. My personal things were still on my desk. After September 11th, it was clear to me that not only was my J.P. Morgan career over, but also my finance career was over. I never went back to finance. I had to think about what I wanted to do. I struggled a lot personally with the decision-making process.

People have always thought, myself included, that I would be a politician and run for office or something crazy like that. By contrast, there has always been a part of me that likes business and functioning in a more executive role. Executing on a mission and on a plan versus politics where you are more of a mediator is a different skill. These are two different personality traits that I struggle with. I was hoping to identify which one was dominant.

I went to Harvard to visit the JFK School of Government. I had gone through the training program at J.P. Morgan and rose to Vice President, but I had not received an MBA. I really liked the program, but it was September, and I had to find something to do until the following September.

The next week, I went to the Congressional Black Caucus, and I sat in on a panel with the great Maxine Waters. She was holding a panel on urban development, and there were very, very few Black developers. The main one was Magic Johnson’s firm, and his number two was the panelist. At the conference, I walked up to Maxine and said that I would like to work for her as she was the ranking minority member on the finance committee. She agreed to meet with me, and I arrived in her office on a Monday morning after the conference. She does not remember the meeting (which I guess is credit to her that she helps so many kids that she literally didn’t remember), but when I arrived, her staff advised me to go to this restaurant in Washington, DC where we would meet.

I went to this restaurant, and she sat me down for two to three

hours and discouraged me from entering politics. After listening to me, she said, “When I push for diversity, there are not many African-Americans that can manage large and complex projects.

With your background, have you considered real estate?” I don’t even think I told her about my mom. I just said, “Hmm, let me think about that.” Knowing in my head that it was sitting with my parents and helping them with their real estate project that got me into finance. The next day, I went into her office, and she had me draft a position paper, which I did, just to get a feel for it.

I came back to New York, and I thought about it for a couple of weeks. I applied to the NYU Real Estate Masters program and was admitted that January in the NYU Real Estate Master Program—a one-year program. I took all the core curriculum. At the end of my first semester, I attended a conference and met Patrice Derrington.

She was serving as the Director of Economic Strategy for the

Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which was created to lead the rebuilding of the World Trade Center. We chatted for a few minutes and she said, “Come work for me.” Shortly thereafter, I started working for her, learning development and planning at a very high level. When I went to her office on the first day, she had flowers waiting for me on the desk.

I realized the thing that I didn’t know was managing large organizations and managing large complex processes. I could do finance. I could figure most things out, but how to manage something complicated, I didn’t really understand. That was the impetus for applying to Wharton because Wharton was not only good in finance but also organizational management from an operations perspective and a tactical perspective. I attended Wharton in the executive MBA program.

Your legacy for helping women, where did that come from?

You ask questions that I haven’t really thought about before. I never sit here in this precise place either (gestures chair) because this is where my guests sit. I have never actually sat under the picture of my mother before, and I have been living here for 20 years. I get it from my mother.

Bea posing in one of her 3-bedroom model apartments in 88 Morningside Avenue. Above: The view from the roof deck of the 88 Morningside building, overlooking the NYC midtown skyline to the south and Columbia University to the east.

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What is BOS? First of all, my initials.

What else?

I used to describe my company, BOS, as a community-based development and brokerage company that delivers a range of assets to create a vibrant community, ranging from education, hospitality, residential, commercial. BOS is defined as such in my Bio. But what I’m beginning to understand is that I foster transformation. Transformation in people and transformation in communities. I have been doing this all my life. Real estate is a physical transformation, where you take a piece of dirt and you create and transform that dirt into a thing. But as my work evolved, I realized that is just the beginning. Real estate is just the vessel. It is just the skin. I find myself pulled more into what happens inside that skin.

As a vessel for transformation, how do you intend to manifest into your passion project?

My passion project is the intersection between where art is commerce and commerce meets art. In my real estate practice, I work with a lot of faith-based institutions. This started, because in Harlem, there are very few development sites. Most of the development sites of a size that are economically attainable for an emerging developer like me are controlled by churches. My first project was a condo, built on a land lease from a church. In my work with churches, I discovered there are many hundred-year-old plus churches in Harlem. Some of them are landmark-worthy. It is a big challenge in the community because it’s heartbreaking to destroy these buildings, hundred-year-old classic buildings. The building gets torn down and a big box retail or condos are built.

I had been looking for a landmark church because one of the things in the New York real estate code is that with landmark buildings, you can petition for a change of use. People might know a church downtown called the Limelight that was changed into the Limelight Club, now a market. I had been looking for a landmark church to create a market like Chelsea market. A couple of years ago, I was alerted to this church site, the All Saints Church in Harlem. It is not only a church, but it is a campus.

How large is it?

86,000 square feet combined. There is St. Patrick’s downtown.

All Saints is the St. Patrick’s of Harlem, built to the same architectural standards and significance, probably the same architect. It is a trophy. The sanctuary is 69 feet high. It is one of the most majestic buildings in the heart of Harlem and probably one of the most majestic buildings in New York City.

How would you transform that?

I did a tour of the building, and one of the things I learned at Yale is the theory of comparative advantage. If you want to think about how to develop a country, you should think about what a country is good at. I do my real estate the same way. I walk into a building, getting the building to tell me what it wanted it to be.

What did it say?

There is a sanctuary, 69 feet tall. And underneath that sanctuary, the cellar is 15 feet tall. There is this volumetric, one of a kind, space. Even with Harlem’s cultural legacy, there are very few cultural and performance venues. Very, very few and most of the jazz clubs in Harlem have closed. Harlem’s famous Lenox Lounge was closed two years ago. Most of the jazz clubs in New York City are in Midtown. We don’t have very many destination venues in Harlem. So that space spoke to me as an experience, a location where you could do the range from performances to fashion shows to exhibitions, weddings, i.e. just a full-on cultural experience, with food and everything.

There is no place with that level of seating capacity north of the Museum of Natural History on the West side, and no space like it uptown. So everyone in uptown goes downtown for major events. Even though a part of my business is building schools, I am building the schools of tomorrow which need a certain technological infrastructure. But this is like the old-fashioned school. With the big classrooms people could do work here, but not schoolwork. This could be the most amazing office building.

I thought you were going to say like Juilliard, where you would have these huge classrooms for musicians...and it was going to be an arts or cultural destination. Instead you went business?

It is the business part of my head. First, creative coworking.

During Covid-19, in New York City, we couldn’t even make gowns for medical professionals. It is important to bring creative work back into the city. This would serve as a hub for fashion, food, arts and culture. In the last six months, fashion is going through a fundamental transformation. No one is going into retail stores anymore. Fashion is coming to you in a box customized for you. So what this will do is it will create what’s called in fashion a full-stack experience, where we will curate emerging designers, give them the infrastructure to become brands, and position them with the full-stack capabilities all the way from printing their custom fabric to digitizing patterns, to automating cutting, to marketing and shipping.

An incubator for food and fashion. How is something like this funded?

We are making it up. The challenge is not in financing.

The challenge is setting it up. And literally we are creating a new model here that does not currently exist. We effectively are creating the WeWork of fashion. There is a WeWork for technology in Silicon Valley. I’ve never seen anything like this for the fashion industry, the garment industry or for creatives.

We literally have to break down the cost structure and figure out the pieces of equipment that we need.

How far out are you from realizing this dream?

The site is not yet zoned for commercial, so we have to change the use to commercial. We finally figured out that a lot of the uses that we have for the sanctuary are actually uses that happen in museums. We will develop the project in two phases and effectively develop the sanctuary first as a museum in a nonprofit status and develop the school later.

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Now, will that museum have areas for the community at large to come to an amphitheater or a huge auditorium? You mentioned that was one of the areas of need.

Yes. It is also an educational opportunity. Textiles are, as you know, currently one of the biggest polluters because of the old-fashioned way of mass production of clothing a year in advance; pick a look, pick a color, produce a lot of it. A lot of dyes pollute the water. If it doesn’t sell, take all those clothes and sell them into landfills.

Textiles are therefore one of the biggest industry polluters.

The model that we are contemplating led my friend to say, “You’re not in the development business; you’re in the business of transformation.” The opportunity is, how do we actually not just transform the place of African-American designers in the fashion industry, but how do we become a part of transforming the fashion industry to a more sustainable model of production? And then while we were doing all this research an epiphany happened. Here we are sitting in Harlem as African-Americans because of fabric. Yet, the entire explosion of the transatlantic trade was about the exploitation of cotton.

You’re from the Carolinas? Right. When you look at the research at the time of emancipation, 1.8 of the 3.2 million slaves were producing cotton.

Bea, where do you find the strength to take on these herculean projects?

I feel like I have learned one thing in every major school that I attended. I listened to those three things every day. When I was in Catholic high school in Jamaica, I think it was called Archimedes’ principle, “If you find the place to put the lever, you can move anything.”

That’s number one. What was number two?

At Yale, and it was Schumpeter’s economic theory; simply put, economic change creates political change. Political cycles are shaped by the economic transformation, which we are now going through the technology, digital and AI transformation.

Number three?

The third educational lesson I learned at Wharton. To build a business, you must solve a problem. That is what I spend my days doing. Find a problem that’s big enough and interesting enough to solve. Put your lever where you can make the biggest difference and then leverage the hell out of technology and use the technology, which is an agnostic platform. Make it directional.

This technological revolution that we are in could create some of the worst inequality the world has ever known, but it also could ignite creative destruction, where a super talented girl from Harlem who comes into a WeWork of fashion can use a half-amillion dollar machine for an hour a day and just pay for her hours’ worth of the machine and build a top fashion line.

And level the playing field?

Yes, and level the playing field.

What do you want to accomplish in this next chapter of your life?

This project is what I want to do in the next chapter of my life. I have spent 50 years in school, filling my brain.

I can hardly remember names my brain is so full. I want to put it to work. Jamaica is an interesting place because of social experiments, right? Michael Manley nationalized all the private schools, the legacy colonial elite schools, which made it possible for someone like me to exist. On the other hand, he also nationalized the sugar plantations and destroyed the economy.

Growing up, we had no food in the stores. It was like how the average supermarket looked during the peak of Covid-19. There was nothing on the shelves. It didn’t matter

if you had money. In Jamaica, the slaves, after emancipation, moved into the Hills, so all the food in Jamaica was grown in the hills. The entire country was being fed off these small inefficient farms in the Hills. Fortunately, we had access to one, and once a month, my parents would load up the station wagon, drive to the farm and load as much food as possible into that station wagon.

The best land had been used for sugarcane production.

We would drive past these idle green sugar plantations with rotting equipment on the side, with no food in the city. We saw these plantations just covered in lush green sugarcane that could not even be harvested because the factories were bankrupt.

That experience shaped my life with one thought. It did not have to be that way. Mother nature gives us everything.

How do we use what we have been given? There is no reason for hunger. There is no reason for underemployment. There’s no reason that everyone cannot have a beautiful house to take care of their family. There is no reason we cannot live in bounty. We just are not organized for bounty. This is I what want to spend the rest of my life doing, tapping into nature’s principle of bounty and making communities thrive, communities like Harlem, where there is too much hunger and too much lack of opportunity. It is not natural. It is not a natural state of being.

What life lesson can you impart?

Listen. It is what I say to everyone that I mentor. The reason I think I am an effective builder is I listen for the you in every person. And to answer your next question, how can I do what I do, which is so hard? Because I have listened to myself. I listen every morning for who the real me is. If I am being the real me everyday, then I know I have the angels on my back.

What is your purpose in one sentence?

To live a life of integrity, creativity and passion.

Do you believe that you can accomplish that?

I am a part of a women’s group that has been meeting during Covid-19 through Zoom tea. An older, wiser woman was in my Tea chat room, and she told a story of how she made her way in her time with a lot less opportunity than I have. She said the “masters of the universe” would take her under their wings. One of the things that she used to do was always fly first class. A lot of the people that she’d met professionally, she met in first class. I was the moderator, so when I was summarizing, I said, I wanted to thank her for letting me know that I thought I was flying first class, but I am flying coach. Metaphorically, the lesson that I have learned is even with all I am doing, I still fly coach. There is nothing derogatory about flying coach either. I am not flying at my ultimate potential.

The only way that I can achieve my potential is to take it higher. I have to get out of my comfort zone at a level that I don’t even understand to achieve what I want to do. I have to play such a big game that in all the fancy schools I’ve been to, all the fancy places that I have worked, I still have not played at that level. I am excited to step into that place, and I am not scared. I know I have to train mentally and physically. How do you create a Serena Williams? How do I play at that level?

That is my challenge. How do I get myself into that level of conditioning? Who are the coaches and what are the teams that I need to perform on that level? It’s a thing. You don’t become Serena Williams by accident.

Do you have those answers yet?

No. But I’m listening very carefully and welcoming the response. ■

PHOTOGRAPH BY LISA PAVLOVA

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kristin Interview Date: July 14, 2021

KRISTIN HARMEL was born to write. At the young age of 16, she had

already landed her first major gig as a sportswriter covering Major League Baseball and NHL hockey. Since then, her career has flourished, as she has covered an impressive variety of topics for major publications and networks, including PEOPLE magazine, Travel + Leisure, Glamour and The Daily Buzz. Kristin’s passion for journalism carried her far, but what she truly desired was to become a novelist. In Paris, on a break from PEOPLE, she wrote her very first novel while still in her 20s. Today, she is a New York Times bestselling, USA Today bestselling, and #1 international bestselling author, as well as the co-founder and co-host of the weekly web show and podcast Friends & Fiction. Enthralling, engaging and evocative are all common words used to describe Kristin’s works, making it clear to see why these page-turning novels are sold all over the world.

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Did you always know that you had a gift for writing?

I like to joke that I have never wanted to be anything other than a writer, except for two brief periods, one of which was when I was three years old. I would tell anybody who would listen that I wanted to pump gas during the day and play the piano in a bar at night. I have no idea where that thought came from or how it entered a little three-year-old’s imagination. When I was nine or 10, I was convinced I was going to be a pop star. My name was going to be Mystica. But sadly, the complete lack of singing ability stood in the way of that dream. Aside from that, I’ve never wanted to be anything else. I have been making up stories for as long as I can remember. My mother found my first “book,” which was a stapled together Bobbsey Twins tale that I wrote when I was six.

Writing has always been my dream.

Do your ideas and stories “percolate” or “explode” onto the page?

Probably a combination of the two because I outline extensively.

During the outline process, stories just come onto the page. I don’t stop and take the time to filter the ideas or worry about the shape they land on the page. When I write my first draft, it tends to be that way too, because I use the outline as a guide. This process frees up that self-censorship that gets in the way. Sometimes when you are starting from scratch, you ask yourself if the idea is going in the right direction. This process helps.

How did COVID affect you and your writing?

It was difficult. I have a five-year-old, and his school was closed for the first few months of Covid-19. We never were comfortable sending him back, so our schedules were completely changed. I think that was the biggest impact. For me, it also canceled two book tours and cut into my writing day. Before Covid-19, I wrote when my son was in preschool. Once he was no longer at school, I was no longer able to

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write during that time, which completely rearranged my schedule. I wound up working early mornings and weekends, which impacted my husband and me. We became ships passing in the night, trading off our son and not really spending much quality time together. I am looking forward to getting back to a more normal routine.

How many books have you written?

It depends how you count them. This is my 13th full length novel under my own name. Fourteen, if you count novellas. Sixteen, if you count books I have written under pseudonyms.

Did you ever ghostwrite for anyone?

I did. I was a ghostwriter for Chubby Checker’s autobiography.

He was born in South Carolina and grew up in Philadelphia.

The book has not been published because he is not ready to do anything with it yet. But we worked together on it for years. I never set out to be a ghostwriter. It was a project I just fell into. We wound up meeting at a time when he was looking for a ghostwriter, and it has been one of the most wonderful experiences. He has become one of my dearest friends. He is Uncle Chubby to my son. When my husband proposed, he asked my mother, father and Chubby for their permission first. It has been a wonderful experience that has shaped my life.

You have also written for multiple magazines. Tell me about writing for People Magazine.

I always wanted to write novels. I felt that was an unrealistic career goal at age eighteen, right out of the gate, so I decided in the meantime I would go into journalism because I could use and develop my writing skills. It would also give me the chance to talk to people, which is what I loved and still love about journalism. It’s the idea that you can ask people questions that you would not normally ask someone you just met 15 minutes earlier, right? You can ask me

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about what makes me tick or what did my mother and father do, personal things that don’t normally come up in conversation.

I also loved the ability to get inside people’s heads. I started querying magazines when I was 16, cleverly omitting my age from the query letter. So, I wasn’t lying, but it just seemed like there was no reason to share that. I landed my first professional assignment, and I started off as a sportswriter covering Major League Baseball and NHL hockey at 16. I was masquerading as an adult, which is crazy, but I wanted to be a journalist. By the time I went off to college at the University of Florida, I had already amassed magazine clips. I had been published many times over the preceding two years which led me into a couple of internships, one at Woman’s Day when I was

Q

19, and one at People Magazine when I was 20 or 21.

Interning at People Magazine turned into a job that lasted 12 or 13 years. It is foggy when it ended, because I was still doing a little bit of freelance work for them. It was a wonderful experience covering three Super Bowls, going to the NBA all-star game and MTV Movie awards.

I interviewed so many people. You would think my all-time favorite story would be a celebrity such as Patrick Dempsey—be still my heart—Ben Affleck, Matthew McConaughey or people like that. But my favorite, honestly, was a man named Henri Landwirth. He was an extraordinary man. He founded an organization called Give Kids the World, which gives critically ill children and their parents a dream vacation.

It is a memory the children and families can always have. The

WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF?

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NY Times best-selling author Kristin Harmel interviewed by ELYSIAN Publisher, Karen Floyd, in her home, during the Inspiring Woman interview.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY ROB SPRINGER

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organization brings critically ill children and their families to Disney or Universal or whatever. Henri was a Holocaust survivor, and he spent the years from 13 to 18 in concentration camps. He became an extraordinary American success story. His two best friends in life were Walter Cronkite and John Glenn, both of whom, in separate interviews, said he was the most extraordinary man they had ever met.

Talk about high praise from people who have met a million people! He said that during the time he was in the concentration camps, in order to survive, he had to learn to turn his emotions off. And when the war was over, he never knew how to turn them back on again. That statement impacted me so much that it has stayed with me for years.

I thought about it again and again, that intangible thing that could be taken away from you, something we take for granted—the ability to love, the ability to hope, the ability to feel any of the emotions that we take for granted. Those emotions had been taken from him.

And that, ultimately, became the core of one of my characters in my first World War II novel, that I wrote in 2010 and which came out in 2012. It was a PEOPLE magazine interview that got me thinking about World War II and how much I wanted to delve into it.

And World War II is really your sweet spot.

It is.

How many novels in that genre?

The Sweetness of Forgetting, When We Meet Again, six or seven. There are so many interesting stories from that time period that continue to resonate today and continue to bring us real life lessons. I think it should feel much further in the past than it is. World War II was 75 or 80 years ago, but we can readily identify so much with people living then. Most readers today have a personal connection to somebody who lived through that war, whether it was our parents or our grandparents. It feels very accessible, and there are a lot of messages from that war that we haven’t entirely learned as a society yet.

We also are just at a moment of our modern history where we

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WITH EVERY NEW BOOK I BEGIN WRITING I HAVE THAT DEEP FEAR THAT NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES I’VE DONE THIS BEFORE, THE ABILITY TO DO IT WILL GO OUT OF ME . . . FEAR SLOWS ME DOWN BECAUSE I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN A PERSON WHO HAS A LOT OF SELF-DOUBT. . . I THINK THERE WERE A LOT OF THINGS I WOULD HAVE DONE EARLIER IN MY LIFE IF DOUBT HAD NOT HELD ME BACK.

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are beginning to look back and see all the things that women did during that war. Ten years ago, if you had asked somebody, “What do you know about World War II?” they would have told you about the battles staged by men, but there were a lot of women behind the scenes, too, women working for the underground, the resistance and doing other important work that won the war. It is interesting to bring those stories to the forefront and remind people, not just of the women, but of all the people working behind the scenes in everything and how important they are.

In July, you released a new novel The Forest of Vanishing Stars?

Yes, The Forest of Vanishing Stars is the story of a young woman who was kidnapped from her German parents when she was just two years old. On her second birthday, a woman takes her from the family apartment in Berlin, believing she has been called by the forest itself to take this girl and give her a different fate, a different destiny.

She takes her deep into the woods and raises her in the wilderness with every survival skill she’ll need; differentiating the nourishing mushrooms from the poisonous ones, the herbs that heal and the herbs that hurt, how to kill a man with her bare hands and how to build a shelter in the winter. She is taught all of the things she needs to know to survive, but has virtually no human contact and, thus, almost no interpersonal skills. After the old woman dies in 1942, the young woman wanders the forest alone following the old woman’s orders to stay away from villages to protect herself. Her life crosses with a family of fleeing Jewish refugees. She finds out for the first time what is happening outside of the safety of her woods. She learns that the Germans have come into Eastern Poland and have begun putting Jewish citizens into ghettos, murdering them, taking them away to their deaths. Jewish people were fleeing into the forest trying to escape that fate. So, she is faced with a choice: do I retreat to the safety of the woods, which is what she had been taught to do, or do I use what I know to help? Obviously, she chooses the latter or there would be no book, right? It would be a very short story if she chose the former. Everything changes for her, and she is basically forced to understand human interaction for the first time.

This is a “coming of age” story, but it’s also a story about identity.

How much is she responsible for based on who she was born to be? Or how much was she shaped by this Jewish woman who kidnapped her and raised her? How much has she been shaped by the decisions that she makes? The story is about how our identities

The five bestselling authors who host the web show Friends & Fiction, from left: Mary Alice Monroe, Patti Callahan Henry, Mary Kay Andrews, Kristin Harmel, Kristy Woodson Harvey.

BUD JOHNSON PHOTOGRAPHY

Opposite: Kristin with authors Colleen Oakley and Mary Kay Andrews at FoxTale Book Shoppe in Woodstock, Georgia while on tour for The Forest of Vanishing Stars.

are formed too. The novel is based on the real-life stories of Jewish refugees who fled into the forests of Eastern Europe. What is extraordinary is that there were thousands of Jewish refugees who left the ghettos, left the villages when they knew they were going to be put into the ghettos, and found their way to the forest and survived the war against almost impossible and insurmountable odds. Those stories are so inspiring and so relevant. While it can look like fate and destiny have one thing in store for you, you can change that. You can change your fate by taking control of it.

It was an extraordinary story to research, not least of all because I got to speak with one of the refugees from one of the largest and most well-known refugee groups. He was a man named Aron Bielski who was 14 when his parents were taken away and when he had to flee into the woods. He is 94 now. To speak to him about not only what life was like out there, but what he learned from it and how that experience shaped the rest of his life, impacted me deeply. Some of the things he said really stuck with me. “Hardship teaches us life,” he said. I think that’s such an important thing to remember; that we don’t learn from those smooth roads we walk along. We learn from the rocky ones, we learn from the challenges, from the difficult times…which was something he learned in a way most of us can’t really imagine.

It was very hard to put myself in his shoes and imagine witnessing my parents being taken away to their deaths as he did when he was 14, to imagine fleeing into the woods, losing everything that you had taken for granted. And not only that, but his job within the group that he was a part of in the woods, was to go into the ghettos and convince people to leave. He risked his life, time and time again to bring people out, to give them a chance to live. Another quote that stuck with me was so simple, “Be nice if at all possible.” He said that was something he learned during that time and going into the ghettos was an extreme example of that. He was certainly being nice, by giving people a chance to live. It’s amazing to look at this

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Kristin speaking at a luncheon at the Piedmont Club in Spartanburg, SC about The Forest of Vanishing Stars.

person whose life, as he knew it, was completely stripped away from him at age 14... such a young and formative age. But he survived and 80 years later, he’s still here to talk about it. What a gift.

The protagonist in the novel was in search of her identity, and she faced dueling pasts within her that she doesn’t totally understand. Where did that idea emanate?

I didn’t realize until I was midway through writing this book that I had a family connection to that same general area of the world. I always thought that my dad’s family came from Germany, Austria, Hungary—somewhere more in that region. It turned out they were Polish Jews who came over about 50 years before World War II started.

While I knew that my dad’s side of the family was Jewish, I didn’t realize that until I was about 20. I was trying to reconcile the Catholic upbringing I had with the other piece I discovered. It’s a journey I have been on for the past 20 years. Does it shape who I am? Does it make me a different person? Does it give me different responsibilities? I have always been me, but it’s interesting to look at the things that become a part of you, even the things you don’t know about and wonder how they’ve shaped your journey and how they shaped your future. I think in that way, Yonas’ search for identity probably is somewhat reflective of my own journey and my own search for identity.

Did your father tell you stories of his family’s immigration?

I don’t think he knew most of it. My parents divorced when I was 11, a typical time and age probably that I would have been asking those questions. But also, we were not close during those years. Thank goodness for things like Ancestry.com that allow us to look back and see things like census records and immigration documents. I found

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documents showing that my great-great-grandmother, whose name was Rosie Harmel, traveled back to Europe in 1933. She was 69 years old, got on a ship alone and traveled to Poland. Stumbling across that document impacted me because she was probably visiting people who just six short years later would face the unthinkable. She died in 1941 and must have been horrified to realize what was happening to them, to realize that there was no escape, that they were there in Poland and all these horrible things were happening. She must have certainly lost many members of her family and friends. To know that at the very end of her life, right before she died, this was happening. I had been writing about World War II for a long time, but I never realized that my own family had experienced such a close personal connection to that period.

Do you think intuitively you were drawn to World War II because of your heritage?

Initially, I was drawn to World War II by reading The Diary of Anne Frank, which I read when I was 11 or 12.

The first short story I ever submitted to a contest was when I was 13, and it was a short story about a girl in a concentration camp. Something clearly captured my interest, and that story meant something to me.

What was it that resonated with you when Henri Landwirth said he had to “learn to turn his emotions off and never knew how to turn them back on again”?

He lost such a fundamental thing. I think that he lost his ability to feel.

But he obviously felt. You said he dedicated his resources to helping critically ill children. His life was abundantly successful …

But not in the same way that I think you and I do. He had been married five or six times. He wanted to have the “right” feelings to love his wives in the “right way.”

And he never could. It was something within him that he just couldn’t access. The reason he founded the organization Give Kids the World, which serves a large number of children who, sadly, may not live to see adulthood, was that these children were having their childhood taken from them in much the same way his was taken from him. Around the children, he felt something.

I witnessed something so deep and profound about that loss. I had been so moved by The Diary of Anne Frank and thought so much about losing a parent or losing a sibling, losing all your belongings, losing your dignity.

There was so much loss, but I’d mostly thought about the tangible loss. I don’t think it had fully occurred to me before talking to him that you could lose something intangible that would still shape your life so strongly 65 or 70 years later. But what he lost was so intrinsic to life, so important to the way you would need to live your life going forward, he could never get it back. I have always been interested in the psychological impact of the past on the present, not just the way that the past impacts us, but the way the past impacts the way we raise our children and the way they raised their children. I think that is one of the reasons I tend to tell a lot of dual timeline stories that are set in the past and the present. I like to see how that unfolds through the generations. Talking to him may have set me on that journey or set me back on that path of thinking in more depth about the intangible things that we carry forward, the intangible things that are taken, that we can’t get back. That is what that time period represents.

What do you think life is all about?

A recurring theme in my writing is ordinary people finding the

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ability to be extraordinary, especially when they are faced with difficult times. I think that when we are faced with difficulty, as a lot of us were during the last year and a half during Covid-19, we find these reservoirs of strength we didn’t know we had. I think that maybe it is about finding ways to survive but also finding ways to be the light in the darkness, even when the darkness isn’t that great, because there will always be periods of darkness in our lives. There are always going to be periods of light in our lives. I think finding the ability to pull your inner strength out and use it to help other people is something that is important as we go through our lives.

Do you think that is why you write?

I think it’s part of the reason I write. Writing has always been a part of me, maybe in ways I can’t explain. I am sure some of it comes from my mother reading to me all the time when I was a child and getting me interested in stories. When we follow where our heart leads us, sometimes those things are hard to explain.

I cannot imagine not writing. It would be like not breathing to me because it has become such a part of me. I don’t know how I would define myself without writing. When I had my son, who is five now, I took a few months off from work, and I felt very adrift because it was really the first time in my adult life I wasn’t writing.

Because I have this calling or this gift, I have a responsibility, in some ways, to tell stories that can make a difference. I don’t think I sit down and write a book whose purpose is to change lives. But I think that comes through the process because that was what The Diary of Anne Frank taught me. I knew I wanted to be a writer, but up until reading that book, I had read books like the Nancy Drew and Bobbsey Twins series, so I thought books were just meant to entertain you. I didn’t grasp until I read that book that books could change the world through changing how people feel and how people think. I take that very seriously now.

It is the highest compliment that a reader could pay me, that they read something in my book or were impacted by something that shifted their life in some small way or helped get them through a difficult time. I was at a book signing and was asked if I get tired of signing so many books in a row? And I said, “No, I don’t.” How could I ever take for granted the fact that I’m here and there are all these people sitting at a luncheon to see me because I have written something that meant something to them? It is a tremendous gift I don’t ever want to take for granted or lightly.

If you could ask God a question, one question, what would it be?

How can I be better for you? I say my prayers every night, and every time I get into the car to drive. I do have a belief that there is a greater plan that I don’t understand. I write a lot about people from different religious groups working together.

Judaism, to Christianity to Muslim …

Yes, part of that interest probably comes from discovering that I had this whole second religious part to my past that I didn’t know, and then realizing, which I think is an important realization, that at the root of everything, we are all just human, and we all want the same things. I am still Catholic. I believe the things I believe, but that doesn’t mean that a piece of me does not come from that Jewish past too. People are more similar than we think, across religious groups, ethnic groups and racial groups. I believe at the end of the day; we are all just people. I think that is such an important thing to me that finds its way into my writing a lot. So maybe I would ask God if, at the end of the day, we aren’t more similar than different. I believe the answer would be yes, but that we are working towards Him in different ways.

What is in store for you, the second chapter of “your life’s book”?

I would like to continue writing books about World War II. I don’t know if that will always be my journey, but I hope to write books with a similar heart. I will always write books about people finding a way to be that light in the darkness or finding the way to be extraordinary.

IN THE TIMES OF GREATEST DARKNESS, THE LIGHT ALWAYS SHINES THROUGH, BECAUSE THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO STAND UP TO DO BRAVE, DECENT THINGS.” —KRISTIN HARMEL,

THE FOREST OF VANISHING STARS

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What are you afraid of?

With every new book I begin writing I have that deep fear that no matter how many times I’ve done this before, the ability to do it will go out of me. I go through this every single time I begin a new book until I am about halfway into writing it. I spend months thinking, I am terrible at this and am never going to write a book again. I fear failure. I’m scared of not being able to muster that great story…or my career going downhill. I am scared that I have peaked. I am scared of people or bad things happening to people I love. I have a lot of fears about things I can’t control in the world around me and the people I care about.

Do you think that propels you forward, stops you or slows you down?

Fear slows me down because I have always been a person who has a lot of self-doubt. It is something I am working on and is something I think I’m growing out of as I get older. But I still have self-doubt, and fear is just self-doubt in another form. My self-doubt has always held me back. I think I would have started my career writing about World War II earlier if I hadn’t doubted my ability to do it. I think there were a lot of things I would have done earlier in my life if doubt had not held me back. Self-doubt and fear go hand in hand.

After realizing the power of self-doubt, what is the path forward?

Part of the path forward is self-talk, which is a gradual process. With time, getting more comfortable in my own skin is a big part of it. I was not super comfortable in my own skin. Part of the process of maturity and growing up a little bit is realizing that no one is perfect, which is one of the things that I think has really given me a lot of freedom.

Truly realizing you can’t make all the people happy all the time is also a path forward. As long as you are doing your best and doing it with kindness, you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing. If someone doesn’t like my writing, or if someone doesn’t like me, that’s not on me.

Does it hurt you?

Yes. For somebody who has put her work out into the public eye so many times, I do think I have thin skin, but it’s getting thicker as I’ve gotten older. I used to say, particularly earlier in my career, before I was married, when I was still out there dating, all the criticism made it a whole lot easier to date because you get so used to facing rejection.

People saying, “I didn’t like this about your book,” was similar to when a date rejected you. Oh, well, I’m used to that, I thought. I do believe that whatever aims to take you down actually builds you up, if you face it the right way. It is developing the ability to face those things head on and to have enough confidence in yourself and knowledge of yourself that they don’t destroy your confidence or take you down. Those are experiences building you into a stronger, better, more mature and more self-confident person. Granted, I am not all the way there yet, but I am working on it.

How do you “pay your blessings forward”?

The biggest thing I consciously do is speak to young people as often as I can, typically high school and college students. Those were periods of my life when I didn’t really believe in myself yet and consequentially, I made bad decisions. There were periods of my life that if I had a little bit more self-confidence and had the foresight to realize that I could build a future for myself, I probably would have done things differently and saved myself a lot of grief. I am often invited to speak to groups of young people about my writing, but I wind up talking to them primarily about how to face the world and how to believe in yourself and how to understand that even though you’re young, you have something to offer. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you can’t do something. I think that is important. I think sometimes we are moved to pay it forward in ways that would have been beneficial to us when we were at those points in life. There were turning points in my life that could have gone in different ways if I had internalized that kind of advice. So, I like having the opportunity to give that kind of advice to other people.

What constitutes success for you?

For a long time, it was hitting the New York Times Bestseller list.

When I did finally hit it, it was great and truly an honor. I can say

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I am a New York Times bestselling author now, but I don’t know.

Maybe it is just the perspective that comes once you’ve reached a goal that you’ve strived to reach for a long time, or maybe it is just a little bit of perspective that comes with age.

Now that I’m back out on the road after Covid-19, having been in my house for a year and a half, I feel differently. People come up and say things to you at book signings. Virtual events are in groups and online and not one-on-one, and it doesn’t feel as personal. In the few days I have been back out on the road, I have talked to someone who said that she read one of my books, and it is what got her through the stillbirth of her child. I talked to somebody who said that she was buying four books because I’m the only author who her family reads across four generations. So, it was for a 13-year-old daughter, a mother, a grandmother, and an 87-year-old great-grandmother. Reading was a way that their family connected.

I talked to a woman who mentioned that her father had died just before the Covid-19 lockdown. She was separated from her mother and sisters and that reading one of my books together was one of the first things that got them back to feeling like they were sharing something again, even though they were physically separated.

Those little things from single reader experiences are most important. I was just having a conversation with an author friend, Kristy Woodson Harvey, and I told her the New York Times bestseller list means something. I strive for it. I wanted it, and it is important to me, but that’s not what it’s about. There is nothing that means more to me in my professional life than having someone come up and say something beautiful like that. It makes me realize that something I wrote in my little office in Orlando had an impact on a life at a time that that person needed that impact. That is what success is for me. Being able to be a positive force in somebody else’s life. I know that sounds kind of corny, but I tear up every time somebody says something like that to me. I never want to take that for granted, and I never want to forget that. Therefore, it’s important to keep doing this kind of work.

It is the light in the darkness?

Yeah, exactly. It’s the light in the darkness, very good point.

Pretend that I am your son right now. Give him a piece of advice that would have been important for you to have heard, that could have helped him.

I always did well in school. But my mom was never one who would say, “You got an A plus on your report card; that’s amazing.”

She would say, “I’m really proud of you. Good job. But what is more important is that you are kind.” I think a lot of that comes from her.

Kindness is what I want to instill in my son. He is smart and about to start kindergarten. He already reads really well, loves books, loves numbers, loves math. I can see he is smart and if he applies himself, I think he will do well. I want him to tap into his potential, but I don’t ever want that to overtake the importance of being a kind person.

I don’t know how his life will go yet. I don’t know how easily school will come to him. I do think that if it comes easily, he might settle into that belief and feel he is better than other people, in some way.

And it doesn’t make him better or superior. It just means his gifts are different than somebody else’s. I would tell him to never rely on that, to never let anything other than his kindness define him. Kindness is something that he always has control over and is something that he can use for the rest of his life. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter whether you made an A or a B on a paper, it matters that you were a good person throughout your day. That is what I would tell him. I want him to strive for his version of success, if that is something he wants, but most of all, I just want him to be a good human being.

What inspires you spiritually?

The belief that all through our lives, we are working toward a deeper understanding of God. I think it is the acts of goodness that get us a little bit closer to that understanding. ■

BUD JOHNSON PHOTOGRAPHY

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Alveda

Interview Date: June 14, 2021

DR. ALVEDA CELESTE KING is never alone. She is the niece of

civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and daughter of civil rights activist A. D. King and his wife, Naomi Barber King. Within her lies an unbreakable link to her family’s presence and a direct line to God’s love.

These deep connections provided Alveda the unwavering strength to live a life of purpose as an activist, author, minister and even a former state representative. This is not to say that she is impervious to challenges of her faith, and as did M.L.K., she has learned to always respond with kindness.

Beyond her work as a minister, civil rights and pro-life activist, Alveda is also a best-selling author, accomplished singer-songwriter, consultant to the Africa Humanitarian Fellowship, and has served on the boards and committees of numerous organizations, including the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, Coalition Of African American Pastors, and the Judeo-Christian Coalition For Constitutional Restoration. Throughout it all, she shares her message of faith, love and kindness while carrying forth the remarkable legacy that came before her.

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PHOTOGRAPH BY TANYA PTITSYN

Evangelist King, welcome. You are an artist, an author, broadcast commentator, songwriter, as well as a religious, political and civil rights leader— niece to Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. You are considered a thought leader in all of these areas, which is a lot of ground to cover.

I want to start at the beginning. You are the first-born child?

I am the eldest of five children, and I was born in 1951 on January 22nd.

At the time your home was bombed in Birmingham, were you in the home?

We called Birmingham “Bombingham.” I was a young girl at the time, a preteen. It was in 1963, the night before Mother’s Day, and we were in the church parsonage. My dad was a pastor. My mother had just set the dining room table with all of her china. It was incredibly beautiful. Everything fine was displayed because we were going to have a lovely Mother’s Day dinner. She walked to the picture window in the front of the house, and it began to crack. Daddy was in the back of the house because his study was in the master suite. He was writing a sermon. He noticed that the house was too quiet. The street was too quiet. He walked to the front of the house and saw my mother standing in front of the cracked window. He yelled, “We have got to get out of here.” He took her by the hand. By the time I saw them though, she was in his arms. They ran down the hall. The first bomb cracked the window. It was supposed to draw everybody to the front of the house. Then the second bomb went off. They got halfway into the house, and the front half of our home was destroyed. All of the children were in bed except my brother, Al, who was on the couch watching a war movie. So, can you see that? It was so surreal. While bombs were going off on the TV, a real bomb exploded in our home.

A metaphor for?

War and peace. And they do, co-exist. It was a tale of two cities, of course. So here we wanted the peace of God, and we were living in the anarchies of humans. There was something fascinating about that night.

I still remember vividly, and talk about it now. While we got out safely, people were angry about what happened to our home and violence erupted. People began rioting, wanting to turn over cars and throw things. I remember my dad standing on the hood of a car, but I don’t

remember if he had a megaphone or not. He said, “Stop. Don’t fight.

If you have to hit somebody, hit me. I would rather you go home. My children and I are okay, go home.” My daddy stood on that car, calming the riot. He actually did that in the face of what had happened.

What differentiated your uncle from everyone else?

Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., we have to remember, was a preacher. He believed so much in the love of God. The love of Jesus. I believe he was a modern-day John, the Revelator, because the apostle John went to Patmos Island and wrote the Book of Revelation. He constantly talked about love. My daddy talked about the miracles of Christ, and granddaddy spoke about taking care of the least of these. But Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke about the love of God. It has been recorded that there was only one time that people remembered him stepping out of that position. It happened to also have been the day that he died when he had an argument with someone. Typically, he answered everything with the love of God. Can you help me understand what distinguishes that type of greatness?

I have a favorite story about my uncle (ML), my daddy (Reverend AD King—AD), and granddaddy (Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Senior—Sr.).

AD and Senior both were feisty, but they all loved the Lord and could preach. Martin Luther King Jr. was honestly different. They traveled around the country, preaching together. One time, Daddy and Uncle ML were traveling together. Daddy was driving and ML was in the passenger seat. They passed a car whose bright lights were on and were blinding the oncoming traffic. The person was supposed to dim the bright lights, and they did not. So, my daddy said, “Brother, I am going to shine our lights back in their face.” ML responded, “Brother, I don’t believe that’s the way we should respond. We should do to them what we want them to do to us. And that has been written.” That particular story explains the two of them together and their relationship. Daddy was the champion, the guardian, and the protector of his brother. ML was more focused on the ideas of we have to love, and we have to forgive. They all believed in loving. I do too, but ML was always like that, always.

Q

WHAT DISTINGUISHES THAT TYPE OF GREATNESS?

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ELYSIAN Publisher, Karen Floyd, with Alveda at the Millennium Gate Museum, Atlanta, during the Inspiring Woman interview. The Millennium Gate Museum is a triumphal arch in Atlantic Station which houses Georgia’s and Atlanta’s history with historical artifacts, family heirlooms, exacting replicas and sophisticated interactive video technology that together serve as a cultural and education bridge to the future.

PHOTOGRAPH BY TANYA PTITSYN

a

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AD AND SENIOR BOTH WERE FEISTY, BUT THEY ALL LOVED THE LORD AND COULD PREACH. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. WAS HONESTLY DIFFERENT . . . ONE TIME, DADDY AND UNCLE ML WERE TRAVELING TOGETHER. DADDY WAS DRIVING AND ML WAS IN THE PASSENGER SEAT. THEY PASSED A CAR WHOSE BRIGHT LIGHTS WERE ON AND WERE BLINDING THE ONCOMING TRAFFIC . . . SO, MY DADDY SAID, “BROTHER, I AM GOING TO SHINE OUR LIGHTS BACK IN THEIR FACE.” ML RESPONDED, “BROTHER, I DON’T BELIEVE THAT’S THE WAY WE SHOULD RESPOND. WE SHOULD DO TO THEM WHAT WE WANT THEM TO DO TO US . . . WE HAVE TO FORGIVE. THEY ALL BELIEVED IN LOVING. I DO TOO, BUT ML WAS

ALWAYS LIKE THAT, ALWAYS.

Alveda on the arm of her first husband, Mr. Jerry Ray Ellis, as he escorts her down the aisle in July 1969. Right: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., center, and his brother, Reverend A. D. King, left, leading 2,000 marchers, including hundreds of clergymen, on March 9, 1965, at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Opposite top: Young Alveda with her father, the late Baptist minister and Civil Rights activist, Reverend Alfred Daniel “A.D.” King.

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You are the only person that I know that actually knew Reverend Martin Luther king Jr. Can you fill in the blank? What made him exceptional was_____?

Martin Luther King Jr. lived what he preached. When he was challenged, he would take a deep breath and then he “fixed” himself and did what he taught others to do. He centered himself, constantly.

I was able to grow up around him. I could see him do that. I enjoyed his sermons. Sometimes you needed a dictionary to understand some of his words because he was very educated; his speech was so refined. There was one speech in particular, it may have been a sermon, called the “Death of Evil by the Seashore.” It was about Jesus and the disciples. Jesus ministered to them as he went out in the boat and spoke to the storm. It represented what man has to grapple with and how Jesus taught us to respond. The love of God was what made him different. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was able to live it, walk it and teach it. I am a product of those teachings. Not only from him, but from his dad, who was tough, but tenderhearted. It is recorded and written that when his children were born, my granddaddy was there in the room with his wife.

He cried with her as she gave birth. That was Daddy King. My mother would say to my dad that he was just like his daddy, and I was just like him. “He’ll give you his last dime,” she would say, “and you are going to give away everything.” I said, “Well, mom, I have got to give some more.” That was my dad’s philosophy and how we all grew up. I honestly saw the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. over and over, respond in love. He really did.

Was that a gift from God or was that willful discipline?

It is a combination of living a life of service and having willful discipline and doing what God says. The Bible says we all have a measure of faith. I believe there is a measure of love that comes to each of us, but it takes discipline as well. As I explain, I saw Reverend

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Martin Luther King Jr. practice that discipline with the God-given gift to be able to love others. There is a scripture, “Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.” So obviously Christ was in the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., but what was Martin Luther Jr. going to do with Christ? And what was Christ going to do with him?

Do you believe that every person has a gift, and that gift has to be honed in order to be excellent at something?

There’s a wonderful scripture, “Stir up the gift of God that is inside of you.” I ask that question all the time. People even ask me, “What is your gift?” I respond, “I try to put it all together and serve God because I can’t pick. Is it writing songs? Is it singing? Is it acting? Is it politics? Is it being pro-life? I can’t pick any one gift.” I like to believe there is something within me that will take what is needed at the moment from the Lord and use it for his will. So, do I think that every person has a gift? I sure do. Maybe we have more than one gift, and we need to learn to let that real gift be accepting the will of God in our lives and acting accordingly.

Do you hear God audibly, the voice of God? Or is it more a sensation or feeling?

If I may tell you about an experience that I had when I was a young woman in my twenties. I was not a born-again Christian. That happened in 1983. This was in the seventies. I had just left the nightclub, and I was driving along alone in my car. I had been drinking and should not have been driving. Ironically, when I left the nightclub, they had offered me assistance because they knew I was impaired, but I had told the people at the club that my car was like a horse and knew how to make its way home.

I drove into a storm with lightning and thunder all around me. I turned onto my street – almost to my house. There was a big clap of lightning and thunder. Boom.

An electrical, live wire fell across my car, and I could see the sparks. Back then cars had a lot of metal. I really heard a voice, honest to goodness. It was so startling because there was nobody in the car with me. The voice said, “Stay. Be still and know that I am God.” I sat, my foot was on the brake, not the gas. I sat there for a long, long time, long enough to become sober. The emergency responders came and moved the wire off the car. “Ma’am are you all, right?” “Yes. I’m okay,” I said. “If you had touched anything on this car, you’d be dead. You’d be fried,” they responded. That was the only time I have heard an audible voice, and I really heard it. People have said because you were just drunk, you imagined it. No, I heard it. However, I constantly experience the presence of the Lord. When I am in a jam or when it is time to praise the Lord, I will become aware of certain scriptures. I will be aware that some will say, “No, you don’t need to do that.” Whether you turn to the right or to the left, I will hear a voice and it will say, “Walk with it.” I just hear various scriptures in my mind.

God talks you through?

The word of God, through scripture, talks to me.

Is your life predestined?

I believe that from the beginning of time, God knew, knows, and will know everything. I believe I am God’s plan. I don’t think about predestination a lot because I really don’t necessarily understand it. I also don’t believe that we are reincarnated, but even if I were reincarnated, I believe that this moment is the only moment that counts.

Do you feel the presence of your father?

I dream about my father, my grandfather, my Pastor, Alan McNair, who founded Believers Bible Christian Church. I dream about them. Occasionally, I dream about my grandmother and different people who have crossed over. I am very aware. I keep so many pictures of my family, those who are here and those who are gone, that sometimes I feel as though they are still here. I really do. I don’t talk to my dad or my granddaddy or Pastor. I actually talk to God, but I’m aware that those who have gone on before me are in a crowd of heavenly witnesses. I’m very aware that they are there.

Your father, Pastor AD King, passed away in a questionable drowning. Do you feel his presence?

Often, I do feel dad’s presence. I have his DNA, so I would feel his presence wouldn’t I? And my mom too. She is still here. So absolutely, I am very aware of my daddy all the time. I wrote a song named Is That You? Walk on Water. It is about my daddy who rescued me out of the ocean. I was a young girl, and we were at a retreat with the church. I thought I could swim because daddy could swim. In reality, I could doggie paddle, but I couldn’t swim. So, I jumped out into the waves while my Daddy was on the shore. A wave picked me up, and I screamed “Daddy.” He cut through the waves and picked me up. I said, “Where is Jesus? You said he could walk on water.” I have always been very aware of his presence. I think about my dad all the time.

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Your mother was described as a remarkably strong woman. I read that your mother contemplated abortion on your conception, and your grandfather talked her out of it. Tell me about that.

My mom and dad were high school sweethearts, and they were going to marry when they finished college. Her mother let her go on a date with my daddy, which is why I say that people who are not married should avoid dates because when you have physical intimacy, babies can come. So, they were engaged, her mother let her go out, and I was conceived. My mother didn’t want to birth a baby at that time. They were not married, but they were engaged. She was going to go to this place she learned about in a flyer that was being passed out in the schools, in the Negro community, by the Birth Control League. They were changing their name to Planned Parenthood and could not advertise abortion. It was illegal, but they had a procedure for “undisclosed female ailments,” and you could come and see them and have this procedure, and then talk. In other words, you could come and get a DNC, not a back-alley coat hanger.

You could come and get a DNC. So, my mother took that flyer to her mother. Her mother, big Mama Bessie said, “No, this doesn’t look right.

Let’s go talk to our Pastor, Martin Luther King, Senior (who was going to be momma’s father-in-law). He said, “Nanny. (that was her nickname). They are lying to you. That is not a lump of flesh. That is my granddaughter.

I saw her in a dream three years ago. She has bright skin and bright red hair, and she is going to bless many people.” I was born looking exactly

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like that. Mom and dad were married by then. They had five children, and I was the first. Later in my life, before I was born again, I had two secret abortions, and I miscarried because of a botched abortion. All that has happened to me, but from birth or before birth, I was going to be a voice for life, with a testimony that I was rescued from abortion.

When and why did you decide that you were going to follow a different path in life?

I was born into a Christian family, and I went to church all the time.

When I was five years old, I was water baptized. I sang in the choir, went to Bible study and attended Christian activities for many, many years until 1983. I guess I thought I was a Christian. I did believe that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, died on the cross and rose again.

But it never occurred to me that he died on the cross for my sins and rose again and is in heaven and is my high priest until 1983. I had been a state legislator and made multiple appearances in movies and films, then I went to work at a college for the next 19 years. There was a woman who worked at that college who changed my life. She had a big red binder and inside it there was a book that had a sword on it. I didn’t know what the book was and then one day, she opened it.

People said, “Don’t talk to her. She’s a religious fanatic.” At that time, I was the kind of person, if you told me not to do something, that’s the first thing I was going to do. So, I walked up to her and asked her, “Why do people say don’t talk to you?” She didn’t answer that question. She said, “Alveda, who is Jesus?” I said, he rose again. I remember one of the songs

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Dr. Alveda King, founder of King for America, Inc., gestures at the Justice Sunday III rally on January 8, 2006 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Sponsored by the Family Research Council, the rally was held one day before the start of confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito.

PHOTOGRAPH BY JEFF FUSCO/GETTY IMAGES

I learned when I was a child. She asked me again, “Alveda, who is Jesus?”

And I began to say what I had learned in Sunday school about Jesus. Not good enough. She asked me a third time. I got angry. I remember putting my hand on my hip and looking at her. “Well, I guess he’s God.” And then I said, “No, I know he’s God.” Every question I asked her, she would open that book and find the answer in the Bible. I asked her about the Aborigines and if they were going to hell. “No,” she said, “because they never heard of Jesus.” I think it was in Colossians, “from the beginning of time, they would know enrollments.” And the last scripture, Romans 10:9, “Alveda, you know Jesus is God. If you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that God raised Jesus from the dead, you’ll be saved.” She led me in that prayer, and my whole life changed. It was like a light bulb came on. And from that day on, I am focused on “Yes, God. No devil. Yes, God. No devil.” I have been doing that since 1983.

You have how many children?

I have six living children, two were aborted, and I had a miscarriage.

So, six. Three were already born before 83 and three, three came after.

I was like night and day for them, my older children are very worldly, current. With the younger children, I stopped cursing. I used to drink and enjoy bourbon and those kinds of things. The three younger ones are not accustomed to that lady. The three older ones were. We talk about that all the time now, and they’ll tease me. We all are very, very close as a family.

My children tell me everything. They have told me about their experiences,

and I would go into my room and put my fist in my mouth and just bite.

One night, before the cell phones, when we still had the Captain Kirk flip phone, my daughter called and asked, “Are you praying for me?” I said, “Actually I am. I woke up on the side of the bed and prayed.” She asked me if I would stop because she was not able to have any fun. Three of my children are attorneys. One is in medical school. One just got her master’s from Harvard. The youngest one has not finished college. He has a full scholarship to a Bible school, but he is married and doing other things right now. They have all done well. But the main thing about it is that they all love the Lord. All six children love the Lord.

You have “stood against the wind” on many issues. Advocating a pro-life stance to supporting President Trump, how do you persevere against the shame and the humiliation people cast toward you? Where do you get your strength?

For 17 years before I was a born-again Christian, and afterwards, I have been very, very aware that God is real, and God is present. I believe that we can all find that place in the Lord, but we have to want that place in the Lord. What helps me to stand against adversity? Going on 40 years’ experience now and as the Bible Christian Church teaches, getting to know God through the Bible. I never feel alone because I can go to a secret place in God through Psalm 91. Whether I’m in a crowd, in a storm, it doesn’t matter. I can say in the face of adversity, “I know my Redeemer lives.”

Recently, one of my children asked me to ask their father to forgive me. My first thought was, he needs to ask me to forgive him. Then, I got quiet because it was a sincere request. I stayed up all night Googling, literally, how you forgive somebody who you feel did something to you.

I couldn’t find a really good answer. I wanted to write an article on it, but I got so sleepy and tired. Then I said, “Holy Spirit, how do you do this?” And the Holy Spirit chuckled, not audibly, but I felt the chuckle.

“I wondered if you’d ask me.” The answer was, “you could have been kinder.” So, I wrote a letter. I said, “I want to apologize to you. Please forgive me. I could have been kinder.” I did publish that in a blog.

Many people responded to the post saying, “Yes, I could have been kinder.” It is something we can all do. I hide in the secret place of the Lord, Psalm 91. And I seek kindness.

That is a gift.

It is. It really is. Praise God, praise God, praise God. What could I have done Lord, that was different? You could have been kinder.

Even when you’ve been terribly wronged, you still show a little bit of grace?

It’s scary, but you can actually do it.

How do you insulate yourself from people that are not kind, in politics?

As a state legislator in Georgia in the 1970s, I was a Democrat in the House of Representatives. Across the aisle were the Republicans.

Everybody was divided, but I had friends on both sides, and we wrote bills together. People asked me, “How can you do that?” I said, “I see people, and we can agree on certain things. In the political realm, I started doing that. I moved on from being a Democrat, to an Independent, to a Republican, back to an Independent. Then I became a Frederick Douglass Republican. I work across the aisles. I always have. I still do. I think that’s very important. I also see people. I am not colorblind either. Your hair is beautiful. I see your golden rings, your lovely hair. What color is your face?

I can see your skin. It’s a beautiful color. Hold your hand up. You do see it. You see my skin. Do you actually see my skin? You see it. You feel the warmth in my hand. I feel it in yours. We see the color of our skin. To say, “I am color blind is not true.” Jesus gives sight to the blind. However, I recognize that it is your ethnicity, not your race. We are the human race. Turn your arm over, see the little veins that look a little blue. We are not blind. We can see color, but we do not judge each other by color. We see each other as one blood and one human race. In me, you should be able to see Africa, Ireland and Native America.

Tell me about the book you co-authored, We’re Not Colorblind.

We’re Not Colorblind is a book that I wrote with my good friend, Ginger Howard, a Caucasian lady and a Southern Belle. We met while working together politically, attending the same event. One day, we were both on a platform at the Martin Luther King Center in Atlanta, Georgia. We were the only conservatives on the panel and were being hit really, really, really

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BE A BUSH IF YOU CAN’T BE A TREE. IF YOU CAN’T BE A HIGHWAY, JUST BE A TRAIL. IF YOU CAN’T BE A SUN, BE A STAR. FOR IT ISN’T BY SIZE THAT YOU WIN OR FAIL. BE THE BEST OF WHATEVER YOU ARE.”

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PHOTOGRAPH BY TANYA PTITSYN

—DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

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does not work for me. I have a deck on my home, and I walk out on it and get quiet and hear the birds. When the weather’s right, I can hear the rippling water in the little pond outside. I just stand there and listen. There are very few people who I allow in my home now, and most people close to me know I do not open my house because God lives there. My children and grandchildren know that.

What is your legacy and your life all about?

I believe, as human beings, when we understand that we belong in the heart of God, we are humanity. There is a word that you just mentioned, “legacy.” Most people do not understand. Legacy is so clear in the Bible. This family was gifted to do this. This family was gifted to do that. This group could do one thing. That group could do something else. It is very clear in America that we have lost a sense of legacy. Over our 400 plus years, we stopped remembering our origins, though some ethnic communities know more than others.

The Black community really lost legacy because we could not know who our parents and grandparents were. I am blessed because I know our origins are in Africa, Ireland and Native America. But we are an unusual family. Legacy as human beings and connecting with natural families is important. But the lasting legacy of belonging to God should be the goal of every human being.

What is your focus every day?

Every day I remember that God so loved the world that he gave us Jesus and whoever believes in Jesus will not perish. That’s a burning truth in my heart and in my life. I am very conscious of that particular part of my life and my mission every day.

When I ask you questions, you always go to a Bible verse. Pre-1983, give yourself one piece of advice. Just one.

Stop girl. Trust the Lord with all your heart. Don’t lean into your own understanding. It is going to get you in trouble. That’s exactly what I’d say to younger me, easily.

And what piece of advice would you give to any other woman?

God loves you. God loves you because everybody needs love.

We all seek love. I do that all the time. I just say, God loves you.

You believe this?

I really believe it with all my heart. People will be lost, but that is not what God wants.

Is there an Evangelist King message to share?

Each person living has a purpose. Don’t abort your purpose.

Keep faith, keep hope and keep love. Don’t give up, keep moving forward. That was fabulous, Karen. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.

I saw your tears a couple of times which is how I know when people hear the message.

Thank you, the enlightened Evangelist King. ■

SPEECH BEFORE A GROUP OF STUDENTS AT BARRATT JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IN PHILADELPHIA, OCTOBER 26, 1967

hard. I remember scrunching down at my seat, taking deep breaths and God helping me. After the event, Ginger went home. Not long after, I had a dream that we were supposed to write a book together. In the book, We’re Not Colorblind, we talk to each other openly about our different perspectives. In the end, we are one blood in one human race. We said, open your eyes, and you will see.

One of your qualities is that you are not judgmental. You judge no one?

Not at all.

Where does that come from?

God has forgiven me so much I can’t afford to judge anybody else.

I’m still working out my own salvation in fear and trembling. I just don’t. I see all human beings in need of a savior. All of us…Buddhist or Hindu or Muslim or Jewish or Christian. We are all human beings.

John 3:16 doesn’t say, “God, so loved the Jews, the Christians, the Mormons, the Muslims…” The Bible says, “For God so loved the world...” We are the world. Every time I want to judge somebody, God reminds me of what I used to be. And he says, you used to be like that.

What vocation brings you the most joy?

My most rewarding vocation is being an evangelist, a Christian evangelist, after that a pro-life advocate.

Can you remediate decisions that are not—in your opinion—in alignment with the Bible?

I don’t know that I can remediate my poor decisions, but God can do anything. Everything that we do can be under the blood of Jesus. I still live that way today. Recently, I did something. I was under pressure and under stress, and I said something that shocked everybody. It could have been something I should not have said. I went and got quiet. Before I even took another step past what I had said, the Holy Spirit began to talk to me and reorganize and restructure. Christ, of course, is our remediation—remains our remediation on the blood of Jesus. I understand that. But then Paul says, so should we just run around and sin because we know that we’re going to be forgiven? No, absolutely not. We still have to work very, very hard.

You are a truth seeker and an outspoken advocate for the pro-life movement.

How do you know that your truth is more profound than a pro-choice truth?

When I see a 4D ultrasound, 3D, or even the initial ultrasounds.

When I saw the last baby I was about to abort, and I saw this little black and white picture of that heart, I knew it was the truth because I can see. I know that you and I are sisters, regardless of your skin color, which I can see, but we’re sisters. So, I, when I say truth, I know truth, and the goal is not only to know, to seek truth and find it, but then to share it, truth or love, both equal. I am the way the truth and the life. God is love. I mean, that is God. How do you listen to the voice of God, and do you ever not listen?

Rarely do I not listen. I have learned that when I don’t listen, it

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Amina Khalil:

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Egyptian-American actress Amina Khalil, photographed at the El Gouna Casa Cook Hotel in Egypt, opens up about her work and reaching her fans outside of the Arab world.

PHOTOGRAPH BY AHMED ZAATAR / MAKEUP BY PERRY SABER

Being the Best Version of Herself

BY ALLYSON PORTEE

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Amina poses for a photo at the Casa Cook Hotel in El Gouna, Egypt where she talks about her lifelong dream to be an actress, but her aspirations to also be a mom and to take things slow in her career.

inding a gratifying career can feel (almost) too good to be true.

With a busy life in the acting industry under her belt, Amina Khalil is taking it all in, reaching a point in her career where she can choose which projects she takes on—and she’s looking onwards from Covid-19 with hope in a world that desperately needs it.

She’s outgoing and lively and has acted in numerous Egyptian films and TV shows for more than a decade. Amina Khalil has dreamt of being an actress from the age of three. Her sense of destiny of wanting to connect with people through stage and film has led Amina to a pretty successful acting career. She has played thought-provoking roles that touch on the issues Arab women face in Egypt and in the region, roles which make her Arab female fans connect with her all the more. And while she’s reaching a level where she can choose her roles, there’s no sign of Khalil stopping what she loves most.

Born in Chicago, the 32-year-old actress credits being American to the way she views life. “I feel that I was very lucky and blessed to be exposed to Western culture growing up. It definitely shaped a lot of who I am today in terms of my thinking, and being open-minded,” she shares. “I had access to a different culture growing up so it did affect me.” Her uncle is renowned Egyptian jazz musician Yehya Khalil, known as the founding father of Oriental Jazz, and she studied in the US like him, getting first her bachelors in Egypt at the American University of Cairo, she then went on to train at the Lee Strasberg Theater and Film Institute in New York City, and from there she received training at the Moscow Art Theater in Russia.

Khalil joins many film greats, like Marilyn Monroe and Sally Field, who studied at the Lee Strasberg Theater and Film Institute. “I went to Strasberg when I was 22. I was fresh out of university and eager to learn. As much as I benefitted from Strasberg, what’s more important is the experience of being in NYC, being an Arab woman.”

Raised in Cairo, Khalil spent a lot of time in the US as a child but lived in New York City in her twenties, alone. For those who know Arab culture, young Arab women don’t live alone, even after university. They go from their parents’ house to their marriage house. But Khalil came from a family that allowed her to live abroad and alone, and she loved it. Her time in New York studying and working as a waitress, with no family close by, taught her independence. From learning how to balance a checkbook on her own to living with a roommate and learning boundaries, Khalil’s early adulthood prepared her for the world.

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PHOTOGRAPH BY AHMED ZAATAR / MAKEUP BY PERRY SABER

lthough she is American, Khalil feels herself to be more Egyptian. “I can’t say I feel American because I’ve lived 33 years in Egypt, so this is my home. I feel more Egyptian than I do American, but I also feel very much at home when I’m in the States, so I have a very healthy balance. I fit into American society when I visit the States. I have a lot family and friends there. With my family in the States, we grew up miles apart with very different cultures, and at the end of the day when we sit together it feels like there is no difference. I feel very lucky and blessed to hold dual citizenship. It makes me feel like a very well-rounded and exposed person.”

Khalil’s “ah-ha” moment when she realized her future would be in the film industry was from watching Disney movies as a child.

“I loved the stories and reacted to the characters I saw from the Disney films. I would have my friends play parts and I would play a part,” she remembers. “I’ve always wanted to be an entertainer.”

Her family was not surprised at her career path. “I’m the clown of the family,” she laughs. Just sitting with her, her larger-than-life personality pops out and it’s clear she loves people.

Her breakout role was in 2016 in a Ramadan series, The Grand Hotel. On Netflix it’s titled “The Secret of the Nile,” and it details in thirty episodes a man named Ali, played by actor Amr Youssef, who arrives at a luxury hotel in Aswan, Egypt to visit his sister only to find that she has disappeared. In his attempts to find her he falls in love with the hotel owner’s daughter Nazly, played by Khalil.

But it was her role in a series called Leh La’a (‘Why Not?’ in English), directed by Mariam Ab, where Khalil played a thirtyyear-old woman who wants to gain independence from her family, move out, get a job, and live on her own. It was planned that her character would marry, and though the marriage wasn’t arranged, it was a pushed union. “This was a groundbreaking experience,” she notes, “because I had a lot of women come up to me and say ‘we know exactly what your character was feeling.’” The series crossed the line drawn between parental guidance and independence and self-growth, which can get a bit blurry with Arab culture. It’s not every day that you find a character that stands up for it and voices

. . . a lot of women come up to me and say ‘we know exactly what your character was feeling.” The series crossed the line of where parental guidance is drawn with independence and self-growth, which can get a bit blurry with Arab culture.”

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it, tackling an issue that is very close to a lot of women.

“Now, through social media, it’s definitely much easier to connect with friends and fans throughout the world,” Amina shares. “I do get a lot of messages from people reaching out saying things like, ‘We are from New Jersey or Canada and watch your film with our Arab friends.’ This happens a lot during Ramadan—you know, it’s 30 consecutive days long, an hour of prayer a day. During Ramadan we gather with friends and often sit and watch TV. We have breakfast together to break our fast. A lot of my Arab fanbase in the United States get together to watch the shows that I’m in. I’ve even received pictures from fans gathering with their friends in California, watching my shows together on TV. So, social media has made it easier to connect and get to know my fanbase much better.”

Khalil and her fiancé, Amr Taha, are looking forward to building a family together. “I’m never going to stop dreaming. I dreamt to be an actress. I dream to be a mom one day, so I think as long as I keep on dreaming, it gives me the incentive to reach my dreams and fulfill all of them one step at a time.”

Her twenties brought her career success, her thirties have made her more grounded. “I think my thirties have been great so far,” she muses.

“I think you’re apt to be a lot more grounded. In your twenties, you still have your head in the clouds, but definitely in your thirties you know yourself a lot better, and you know what you want and where you’re going. At the same time, I am enjoying traveling this personal road of discovery and learning not to give in to anxiety. I’m a lot calmer now.

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I don’t have the stress of having to know who I am and be someone I’m not. I take myself seriously but not too seriously.” hen she’s not acting and has time, the actress helps her mother, an animal activist who rescues Egyptian Baladi dogs, an ancient breed of sight hounds descended from the Egyptian Saluki, which was favored by the Pharaohs. “We rescue dogs who have been abused, hurt, and abandoned, restore them to health, and find them new and loving homes.” When she can’t be there to help with the rescue, Amina covers much of the expense of caring for the dogs as they are readied for foster care.

She has new projects lined up for this fall. But with all that she has going on, she’s able to purposely rest and choose which acting projects she takes on. “I’m lucky enough to be in a position where I can be more selective with my roles and truly take on characters and stories that mean something to me. I did that last year with a Ramadan show that was a passion project. Right now, I feel I can push it up a notch and consider my next steps. It’s not about the number of films I do in a year, or even getting my name out. I think that right now I can afford to make art and tell stories that speak the language that I want to put out into the world.”

To be the best version of herself that she can be, Amina says, “We have to still remind ourselves to remember that we are here to be loved and allow ourselves to be vulnerable, and that we’re all human.” ■

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NAWA: The Original Art Influencers

BY SUZANNE JOHNSON

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HOW THE OLDEST CONTINUING WOMENS ART CLUB IS STILL CHANGING THE ART WORLD FOR WOMEN.

Joyce Werwie Perry-Lawrenceville’s pop up exhibit from November of 2018.

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Edith Mitchell Prellwitz, Impressionist and Tonal American Artist of the Gilded Age, Women’s Vice President of the Students Art League of New York, and founder of The Women’s Art Club (now NAWA), photographed in her studio in New York City, circa 1890. Below: Five NAWA officials, circa 1928-1930, of the then called National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors. Opposite: Christie Devereaux De Cesare, new NAWA President, Summer 2021, and Natalia Koren Kroft, former NAWA President 2019-2021 and board member photographed in the portrait parlor of The National Arts Club.

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In 1889, female artists in New York City, inspired by the rising tide of social change and fed up with being overlooked and undervalued in the male dominated fine art world, made use of their rare education and advantage in society to improve the opportunities for all women who desired a career in the fine arts. To realize this vision, they created The Woman’s Art Club of New York, known today as the National Association of Women Artists or NAWA. In 1890, one year after The Woman’s Art Club was formed, the League of Women Voters, as it is known today, was also formed. While the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote would not pass until 1920 (thirty years later), the founders of The Woman’s Art Club moved forward confronting the gender-based bias that shut them out. This bias was pervasive and deep and still impacts the fine art world today.

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founders, Anita C. Ashley, Adele Frances Bedell, Elizabeth S. Cheever, Grace Fitz-Randolph, and Edith Mitchill Prellwitz didn’t waste a New York minute challenging the “boy’s club” bias that adversely affected the professional training and exhibition opportunities for female artists; women were primarily barred from both until the 1870s in the United States.

“Women did crafts. Men did fine art,” Natalia Koren Kroft, former president of NAWA, 2019-2021, and current board member explained. “Female painters, like our NAWA founders, some of whom studied in Paris and trained at the Students Art League of New York (originally The National Academy of Design), were not allowed to show their work among men—men with whom they painted the same model.”

The fact that female artists were believed to be inferior to male artists should not come as a surprise to anyone—chauvinism is known to have existed outside the fine art world (eyeroll). Nor should anyone be surprised to learn that female artists were consigned or associatively discriminated to the work of crafts and decorative arts, like needlework and sewing, given the cultural norms of the time. A point of interest: women dominate the fiber and textile art world, a revered and valued category of the art world today.

But more to the point, the NAWA founders and their early members had a collective confidence in step with the suffragettes of the time, in short, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal.”

Art is subjective, but rights are not. To achieve their vision, the club created higher standards for women artists, promoted exhibit opportunities and therein pursued the respect they deserved as artists, not as female artists.

The Woman’s Art Club achieved immediate success right from the beginning.

Their annual exhibition attracted leading female artists like Mary Cassatt, Suzanne Valadon, Rosa Bonheur and Cecelia Beaux. Membership grew with talented artists who later achieved great recognition, including forward-thinking, prominent artists like Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and Anna Hyatt Huntington.

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney established the Whitney Museum of Art in New York City and Anna Hyatt Huntington, along with her sister Harriet Randolph Mayor, created the sculpture museum, Brookgreen Gardens in South Carolina.

Many NAWA members and supporters have exhibited in major museums, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, and have taken their rightful place among the recognized artists of their time. Some of these artists include Louise Nevelson, Malvina Hoffman, Cleo Hartwig, Minna Citron, Nell Blaine, Dorothy Dehner, Alice Neel, Marisol, Pat Adams, Judy Chicago, Miriam Schapiro, Janet Fish and Audrey Flack.

Being the oldest continuing women’s art organization in the United States, it is impossible to list all the members and honorary members who have defined

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From Above, acrylic and genuine gold leaf by AmyHutto.

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In The Beginning, collage, by Carole Kunstadt. Below: Leahbra Bag 1 by Leah K. Tomaino. Opposite Sculptor and NAWA member Judith Modrak photographed in her studio in 2018.

and, only recently, a few paid employees. NAWA has sustained itself through generous and loyal donors, sponsors, supporters, but primarily through membership.

True to its mission, NAWA maintains a high but nondiscriminatory standard for membership acceptance and, as of 2021, accepts quarterly applications for membership juried by professional peers. Evaluated and accepted on a case-by-case basis, there are currently more than 700 NAWA members across the United States, representing all areas of the visual arts including painting, works on paper, sculpture, encaustic, collage, digital, photography, printmaking, fiber art, video art installations and mixed media.

and continue to distinguish NAWA, then and now. All NAWA members and their work can be found in NAWA’s Annual Exhibition Catalog as well as in the NAWA historic archives which are housed at leading museums, institutions, and universities such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Smithsonian Institution, the Museum of Modern Art, Harvard University, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Library of Congress.

It is a widely known yet catastrophic fact that countless women artists, both their names and artwork, have been lost in history, but fortunately, there was a strong movement in the 20th century that advocated for women artists, and this continues today. One great example is The NAWA Permanent Collection, established in 1991 under the leadership of Liana Moonie, president of NAWA from 1987-1989, that is housed at the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The full archive is housed at the Alexander Library, also at Rutgers. The collection contains the work of artists dating from the organization’s earliest day to the present, including documents such as member cards, artist education and exhibition information, press releases, photographs of artwork and the NAWA Annual Exhibition Catalogues.

In addition to frequent viewings of their artwork, one can also find invitations and promotional materials from significant historic events such as NAWA’s participation in the Women’s Advisory Council of the 1964/65 World’s Fair, the feminist expo 2000 celebration of the new millennium, and the First International Women’s Day on March 8, 1975. The United Nations named 1975 as the “International Year of the Woman” and NAWA hosted a signature reception where prominent women spoke about the future of women in the arts; a logo with the symbol of a dove, an equal sign and the gender symbol of a woman was created to commemorate the spirit and progress of the times, (I wish I had a t-shirt of that). The collection provides a rare, historic canon of the shared and enjoyed experiences of NAWA’s past experiences that continue to be an important part of the NAWA community today.

Now in its 132nd year, NAWA remains committed to its mission “to promote awareness of, and interest in, visual art created by women in the United States.”

As a non-profit, NAWA is primarily a member run organization with officers and an executive board that exists on volunteerism

Still

based in New York City, NAWA has active chapters in Massachusetts, Florida, and South Carolina.

The benefits of membership are many, including a substantial awards program, the opportunity to display artwork throughout the U.S. in the NAWA exhibitions program, inclusion in NAWA’s Annual Catalog and, as of 2020, an active social media network on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and LinkedIn. Tragic, difficult, and life-changing as Covid-19 was, NAWA faced the pandemic proactively, realizing how crippling the isolation would be for a non-profit, member-driven art organization reliant on personal or social engagement. Under the leadership of Natalia Koren Kroft, also a professional artist, educator and art administrator, NAWA created a virtual community for its members to stay connected, learn, exhibit, and grow, in keeping with the NAWA mission. You don’t last for 132 years without moxie and ingenuity; NAWA was founded on progressive thinking and Covid-19 required that NAWA expand into social media to stay current and evolve. And it has.

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Agua XVI Ripple by Muffy Clark Gill.

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NAWA’s social media manager, Emma Seely-Katz, a graduate of Parsons and self-described behind the scenes person, curates and manages all content and activity on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Enabling a wide range of content postings—such as photos, video and live video for artwork, as well as feedback and messaging—has created “a community hub” that offers member art exhibitions, artist interviews, member updates, NAWA news, education and useful tips for users who primarily are NAWA members, but also non-NAWA members, or the art curious, that help build the NAWA brand, cultivate new memberships and, above all, reinvigorate member participation. Check out NAWA’s website www.thenawa.org for information about exhibitions, upcoming events, membership and student membership, the NAWA NOW newsletter and Fresh Paint, a column featuring young artists.

Instagram is NAWA’s most active platform with more than 1500 followers, impressive for a non-profit. Christine Shannon Aaron, a member of NAWA for more than 20 years and a recent Instagram “NAWA Artist of the Day,” shared her enthusiasm as a materialbased mixed-media artist, about NAWA’s pivot and expansive direction. “Instagram is a great vehicle for member exposure, public forum messaging, and driving collaboration for exhibition and other services meaningful to artists in our post Covid-19 world.”

By expanding virtually, under the direction of NAWA exhibition committee chair Joanna Biondolillo, NAWA has been able to significantly expand the number of member exhibitions and exhibition collaborations. As New York, like the rest of world, safely reopens Joanna, along with Christie Devereaux De Cesare, VicePresident Jill Baratta, Natalia Koren Kroft, other committee heads, staff and volunteers, are preparing for NAWA’s biggest exhibition of the year, the 132nd Annual Exhibition. “To the relief and excitement of everyone, the exhibit will be in brick and mortar and in person,” Christie told me with a big smile. The 132nd Annual Exhibition, like all Annual Exhibitions, includes submissions from current NAWA members and many awards are given. The show is free to the public and will take place October 16–23 at One Art Space, 23 Warren Street, in Tribeca, NYC. Additionally, The National Association of Women Artists just opened their new office in The National Arts Club of New York.

Located in the beautiful Tilden Mansion at 15 Gramercy Park South, this world-class cultural arts club also opened in 1898, and what a perfect fit it is. Both clubs opened the same year, no doubt influenced by the vibrancy of American Renaissance and, at the time, both trailblazers had a shared mission to foster and promote the arts for all. The National Arts Club was the first club in New York City to allow women members: Indeed, a perfect fit.

While there has been great progress for women in the fine arts, especially notable since the 1970s, women have never been treated equally in the art world, and today they remain dramatically underrepresented and undervalued in auction houses, galleries and especially museums. “It’s a balancing act,” Natalia Kropf and

Christie Devereaux shared with me. “While NAWA is working to encourage contemporary and emerging artists, it is vital we continue to honor the long and important role that women have played in the history of American culture and art.” Natalia continued, “NAWA still exists, NAWA is still relevant, and our mission is still relevant because, as of today, 2021, the national representation of women artists in museums is still only 20 percent.”

The

fine arts industry is seeing significant and deserved recognition and gains for women artists, yet this 80/20 disparity in our national museum collections, the shocking 2 percent earnings total for “work made by women” sold at auction (2008-2019), the common practice of comparing women artists only with one another, and the winner takes all dynamic that concentrates on a disproportionate few, are but a few of the reasons why The National Association of Women Artists feel they remain an important association for female artists today. Natalia and Christie credit NAWA with having provided them an enhanced opportunity to work and grow as artists and describe the NAWA community as a sisterhood that remains a resourceful, supportive, and enjoyable part of their lives.

NAWA’s history is the story of women artists in the United States and the story is still unfolding; it is as important to look back on as it is exciting to look forward to. NAWA remains inclusive, serving all professional female visual artists of all backgrounds and traditions who are at least 18 years of age and United States citizens or permanent residents. ■

Subtle Exhuberance, Tree Peony, oil on canvas, by Mary Ahern. Above: Tedra With Flowers In Her Hair by Eddi Fleming. Opposite: Artist and NAWA member Nansi Lent in her studio.

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