It was a beautiful day so I walked down to her apartment, thinking sad and happy thoughts and how strange this new life was.
When I got there I opened the bag and inside was a cardboard box. The box was completely covered with a blue sky and white clouds. It looked so much like one of my mother’s paintings that for several minutes I was stunned. As the feeling of surprise wore off, it was replaced by a sense of warmth and gratitude. I knew then that everything was going to be fine and I was grateful for having inherited the ability to find the poetry and humorin that moment.
If my mother had been in my shoes she would have dashed to the telephone and called the funeral home to ask “Where can I get some more of those divine boxes?”
Many of us, when faced with certain kinds of tricky circumstances, would call Fanny for advice. She could take into account the subtle calculus of people’s feelings and sensibilities, whatever web of personal history was draped over the situation and with an unerring sense of appropriateness, propose THE solution.
Sometimes these questions would be about people, protocol or etiquette but they were often about cooking. Having been raised in Paris by a mother who was herself a marvelous cook, my mother had a special gift for food. Her love of food was infectious and I was fortunate enough to be infected at birth. I started to cook at an early age and constantly sought out her wisdom. As I grew older, I began to appreciate how special my mother was, and our relationship broadened from being simply relatives to being very good friends as well. Food was often the currency of the discussion, but what we were really talking about was life.
Fanny had, I think, two favorite times of day. The first was when she arose at the crack of dawn. It was a time she was guaranteed to have to herself and she made the most of it. She was amazingly productive during the early morning hours and very disciplined. I never knew her to sleep late and she hated naps.
My mother’s second favorite time of day was now. The day’s work done, it was now time for the small rewards of relaxation, good company, and cocktails and canapés. Of course, the most important of these was the company of friends and loved ones.
Her parents had always worked very hard at keeping in touch with and entertaining those they loved. They had friends of all ages during all the phases of their lives. My mother and father carried on that tradition with distinction, maintaining many of those same friendships and bridging the generations. We intend to do the same.
The art of making friends, maintaining friendships, caring for, delighting and loving friends was, I think beyond painting, the central work of Fanny’s life. She approached friendship the way she did everything in her life: with care, sympathy, joie de vivre, love and discipline.

Fanny Brennan, Tight Rope, hand-crafted lithograph on Arches Cover. Paper size: 6 x 7 inches. Image size: 3 x 3.31 inches. Signed and numbered in pencil.