Certain topics, even their mention, evoke our curiosity and set us to meditating on larger issues. “Waiting,” like death or love, is certainly one of those topics. It is also the subject of an affecting new book from Louisville’s Fons Vitae press: Waiting and Being: Sketches by Mary Cobb With Writings of Friends. No doubt, this slender volume of words and images will strike the heart (or nerve) of any who page through it, particularly those of us with a bent for people watching. No question, people-watching is the modus operandi of Waiting and Being, a compendium of portraits of people sitting in wait, each sketched with quiet dignity and compassion by Cobb, a well-known and beloved Louisville portraitist. Empathy is the hallmark of the charcoal and pen-and-ink sketches that fill this book. True to its title, Waiting and Being haunts the reader with images of the often melancholy, sometimes mysterious denizens of waiting rooms of one sort or another – men, women and children captured in this and many other nations about the globe. Attached loosely to these moving portraits are a series of short essays, by friends and colleagues of the artist, each of which is linked to Cobb’s artwork and to the varieties of waiting. Cobb’s sketches range from rounded-out portraits of cancer patients and homeless men biding their time in private reverie to impressionistic depictions of those who wait in public for buses, trains, subways – even for horses to burst onto the track at Churchill Downs. Clearly, Cobb has been for some time obsessed with the notion of waiting and its counterpart, of being; she has observed the art of patience and gone a step further to try to chart its physical implications – the boredom of a juror waiting for his name to be called, the slope of a back in an uncomfortable chair, a chin resting idly in the palm of a hand, the gentle collapse of a child’s body sprawled on his mother’s lap. In her brief but revealing preface, Cobb speaks of her longtime habit of carrying with her charcoals, pen and paper to sketch anyone “of interest” who might show up and “be” for her. Maintaining a light, casual touch in her sketches, she abides by her belief that the “spirit within” the waiting individual is best expressed by “the tilt of a head, the curve of a wrist or through an expression in the eyes.” One wonders what was her response when one of her “secret” subjects noticed her drawing and indicated an uneasiness with being sketched? She says she let them glimpse their image on the page, and in most cases this defused their self-consciousness. Her process was, it seems, a give and take. The book’s rich array of portraits is drawn from the Mary Bruce Cobb Collection of the Filson Historical Society. The essays on waiting and being are mostly by women, and they include the candid ruminations of a cancer patient (Anne Ogden, formerly of the Speed Museum), the spiritual meditations of an Episcopal priest (Helen Jones, a founder of Hospice) and the thoughts and memories of a longtime activist for the homeless (peace and justice worker, Sue Speed). The book ends with a final portrait that highlights Cobb’s gentle sense of humor: a sketch of the artist’s husband -- waiting for her. This compassionate and poignant book is a delightful tribute to one of Louisville’s favorite artists.

On a small table near my favorite chair I have a copy of "Waiting and Being" in which you have a reflection. I do not recall when and where I got this book. Spending several days per week as a volunteer and relief chaplain at Norton Hospital Brownsboro and having made my own trips to the oncologist the last few years, I immediately felt a kinship with this book. I do not know Mary Cobb but if you have a chance, tell her thanks. And thanks to you.