Chapter 45
Dylan Rhodes
Once the workshop opened, Lily turned to the Department of Education to make good on their promise to bring in outside lecturers.
She understood the importance of linking the workshop to well-known artists from the center of the country, and she knew the workshop’s stature would be measured not only by local recognition, but also by how it was regarded by artists, writers, playwrights, and the like from the center of the country.
She wanted them not only to agree to the invitation to come down to the southern city, but to be able to list their appearance at the workshop on their résumés.
But as happens in every public institution, promises can’t always be kept.
Suddenly it turned out there was no budget for hosting.
Lily didn’t give up. She launched a campaign against the decision-makers at city hall.
She believed that if the first lecturer swept the audience away, the door would open for the next ones to follow.
“I gave Ali a list of potential lecturers,” Lily told me one evening.
“So they finally opened their wallet?” I was skeptical.
“Look, I’m stubborn and I don’t give up. They promised the workshop would be active – including outside lecturers.”
“So they promised – you know bureaucracy…”
“But I have to keep the promise. They promised, so let them stand by it,” she fired at me, as if I were responsible.
“Fine, so you gave Ali a list?”
“Focus – I just told you. Of course! I trust him. He knows it’s really not expensive.”
“Do they pay the lecturers?”
“No. The lecturer is supposed to get a round-trip flight and a two-star hotel for one or two nights.”
“Well, that’s something. But look – the education department’s direct expense is only a few hundred liras, so why won’t they approve it?”
“I have no idea. I’m dying to get the green light.”
“Just don’t die on me… Who’ll be the first?”
“Dylan Rhodes,” she tossed out, as if we weren’t talking about the head of the College of Art and Design – the State Teachers’ College for Art – located at the time in Ramat-Hasharon. His reputation as a superb lecturer preceded him.
“Dylan Rhodes?” I asked. “He was my art teacher in high school.”
“Yours?” she asked, surprised.
“Yes, he taught for a year or two at Tichon Hadash – art history.”
“And how was he?”
“His classes were fascinating.”
“Do you remember anything?”
“Look, it’s been more than ten years, but I think he opened with a lecture on Totem and Taboo. That I still remember.”
“Really?”
“He spoke about religious ritual and art – as expressions of human fears in the face of the incomprehensible.”
“I didn’t know you had a background in art history.”
“You asked, so I told.”
“Anything else you remember?”
“That ritual also serves as an escape from reality and gives the artist the power to change the face of the world,” I replied, trying to sound casual. Lily’s eyes widened.
“And what about God? Did he talk about God in art?”
“I remember him saying that God – both abstract and corporeal – forms a common denominator across cultures, even while taking different identities in different religions.”
“My man, I’m really surprised,” she said, hugging me.
“Me too.”
“I hope he agrees to come down to Eilat – you’ve made me want to meet him.”
“First get Ali’s green light. Then call him.”
“Do you think I should call, or go to the College of Art and Design?” Lily asked later, after she’d gotten Ali’s coveted approval to invite Dylan Rhodes. Yet again, I realized nothing could stand in her way.
“Call. He might not even be in the country.”
“But I’ll be up north this weekend.”
“Call. I know you – you’ll get excited and won’t be able to wait. I’m here beside you now.”
Lily picked up the phone and motioned for me to stand by her. I knew my presence steadied her.
“Hello, this is Lily Whitney. May I speak with Dylan Rhodes?” She smiled at me.
After a few seconds on hold, she continued.
“Hello, this is Lily – from the Art Workshop in Eilat. I’d like to invite you to join us on one of the upcoming weekends.”
She listened, nodding. I even saw a glint of a smile at the corner of her eye.
“Do you want to set a date?” she asked, and whispered proudly to me with her hand over the receiver, “He’s agreeing!” Then to him: “And what will you speak about? I want to announce your visit in our local paper, Eilat Weekly News.”
After a few more seconds of listening, she said, “So we’re set for the evening of January 19, on ‘American Pop Art.’”
“Yes!” she shouted, almost dropping the receiver.
I hugged her. A swell of pride rose in me. I thought she deserved more than a simple “Yes!”
“I’ll inform Ali, and we’ll draft the notice for the paper,” she said after hanging up.
January 19, 1978 – the late afternoon was relatively chilly for this hot city. We drove the yellow jeep we’d recently bought to the airport to meet Dylan Rhodes.
I recognized him easily. Though more than a decade had passed since I’d last seen him, he had barely changed. At his request, we drove him to the hotel – he wanted to rest.
We arranged to meet in the evening.
“Why are you so nervous?” I asked Lily as we went to pick Dylan Rhodes up for dinner. “You’ve already met him.”
“Because I don’t know how many people will show up tonight at the workshop.”
“If you’re nervous, will more people come?”
“Cut it out, you cynic…”
“I assume most of the students will come – at least the older ones.”
“I also don’t know if we have enough chairs.”
“Stop worrying – Eilat’s residents know how to sit on the floor, even when it’s cold.”
“I hope Dan took care of the projector.”
“Enough…”
At dinner, Dylan Rhodes was completely absorbed in Lily. He followed her artistic development, quizzed her about her university studies, about the Avni Institute, and about the move to Eilat.
“This place is wonderful, and the possibilities here are endless,” Lily concluded her past and future in art.
Like Lily, Dylan Rhodes was amazed by the size of the audience that turned up.
Some sat on the cold tiles and listened to his captivating lecture on American pop.
It was riveting, full of examples and illustrations.
No one moved. The two hours easily became three or more.
Many crowded around him afterward, hungry to hear more and more.
“I want to see your works,” Dylan Rhodes asked Lily the next afternoon as we walked with him along the northern beach.
“I’m not sure I’m ready enough.”
“But I’d like to,” he insisted.
“All right – before you fly back to Tel-Aviv, we’ll stop by the apartment. It’s not so tidy.”
“That’s fine.”
“We live on the fourth floor.”
She thought the height and the stairs would persuade him to postpone.
“Then we’ll climb slowly. I assume you don’t run up the stairs either.”
Did he know something about her illness? There was no way.
“Usually,” she answered.
We both wanted to avoid a visit to our place, but Dylan Rhodes wouldn’t relent. He apparently had his reasons.
When we arrived, I parked the jeep and ran up quickly. I opened the shutters to let in natural light, straightened the living room and Lily’s studio, and had just finished shoving the mess into drawers when they walked in.
Shortly before Dylan Rhodes’s visit, Lily had finished a series of three huge abstract paintings centered on a bleeding heart. The desert colors she’d absorbed during our relatively short time in the city formed the background. The works hung in the living room, and I loved all three.
Other pieces were hung as well: the faces, Ma’alot, the abstract that got her into Avni, The Prostitutes, and several black-on-white sketches of Eilat’s wild landscape.
Whenever I looked at the sketches, I was surprised anew by how they changed.
You could always find some detail you hadn’t noticed before.
Though two-dimensional, a third dimension – and perhaps a fourth – seemed to spring from them like a spring that never runs dry, each time in a different pattern.
They were so impressive. Marisa Vale Shavit, one of the leaders of the environmental group, loved Lily’s sketches.
The two even exchanged drawings. We framed Marisa’s dedication to Lily and hung it in a place of honor.
“You can sit here,” I said to Dylan Rohdes, pointing to an armchair.
He ignored me, drawn to the paintings – the bleeding hearts, the prostitutes, the faces, and the abstracts, on which he lingered longest. The apartment fell silent, broken only when he asked Lily about a technique or the materials she’d used.
Dylan Rhodes made us feel as if we were in a museum, and Lily felt she was being examined.
He ended the circuit with a look at the black-on-white landscapes.
He even studied Marisa Vale’s dedicated drawing carefully – he knew her well.
“What are your plans for this year? And next?” he asked after finishing his review, without offering any opinion on what he’d seen. We were surprised by the question.
“I’m busy teaching at the workshop,” Lily answered.
“Could you rearrange your schedule?”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because I want to propose something.”
“Nothing is impossible.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. If the proposal is attractive, I’ll consider it seriously.”
“Look – you’re very, very talented.”
Lily didn’t respond, but her face showed deep emotion, and her eyes looked moist.
“Now I understand what you told me about the Sharett Foundation scholarship, and about studying at Avni.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can see in your paintings the influence of Wechsler and Strichman,” he said, pointing to the bleeding hearts. “But I think there’s also a great deal of originality here.”
“Thank you.”
Lily flushed deeper. I thought she was about to burst.
“Do you know the group New Horizons?”
“Of course – Zaritsky’s.”
“You could join them without any difficulty.”
“I’m still young. Maybe in a few years.”
“Then may I offer you something?” He glanced at me and returned to the point.
“Yes,” I answered for her, then stepped behind her.
“I’ll build you a custom-made course of study,” he said. Déjà vu, I thought – we’d been in this scenario not long ago.
“What do you mean?”
“Every two weeks, you’ll come to the College of Art and Design for three days – Wednesday to Friday.”
“And then?”
“If you finish, you’ll receive a graduate certificate like the others. You’ll be exempt from some of the classes.”
“And how will you explain that to the other teachers?” she asked.
“That’s my problem. Remember, you already hold a certificate from Avni. Lily, you’re extremely talented. Your work proves it to me. I want you to be a College of Art and Design alumna as well.”
Lily blushed.
“The offer stands. You can join this year, even though we started two months ago.”
In the nights that followed, Lily couldn’t sleep. A yes would pull her away from the workshop; a no would harm her and her future. She hunted for a way to hold the rope at both ends.
“I’ll ask Dan,” she said to me on one of those sleepless nights. “Maybe he’ll agree to adjust the schedule,” she said – half to herself, half to me.
To her relief, Dan supported her and agreed to rearrange his own schedule so she could cluster all her courses and classes at the start of the week, freeing the end of it for studies at the College of Art and Design.
Still, she didn’t know if she could bear the load.
She was afraid. So was I. Despite the fear of the unknown – and particularly of overload and its effect on her – I backed the idea.
By then, I knew better than to try to stop her.
“Lily, I bought Eilat Weekly News– they’re writing about you,” I told her on Friday at noon when I got back from the base.
“About me?”
“About you, about Dan, and about Dylan Rhodes’s visit to the workshop.”
“Really? Will you read it to me?”
I opened the issue. Lily sat on my lap and hugged me.
“Last Friday, I visited the Art Workshop, run by Lily and Dan. The workshop hosted a lecture by Dylan Rhodes on American Pop Art. First, I was surprised by the number of people who came. The lecture was excellent in content and delivery. It’s heartening to see how two enthusiasts like Lily and Dan have built a ‘home’ and a corner for Eilat’s artists – and that it’s alive and working, with courses, lectures, and gatherings, without any of the ceremonials and budgets.
Indeed, blessed be the initiative and the initiators.
You’ve done something beautiful.” I read aloud.
When I raised my eyes from the paper, I saw tears of joy welling in hers.
“I don’t know if I’m crying or laughing.”
“You can do both, my girl – you’ve earned it.”
Dylan Rhodes’s success – and the Eilat public’s hunger for knowledge – gave Lily and Dan leverage to secure approval for more lecturers to come to Eilat, to their delight and ours.
Lily also enrolled at the College of Art and Design for the academic year beginning in October 1978.
We were already entering our third year. Lily only blossomed and flourished.
Not for a moment did I think to call the department head from New-Hope Medical Center.