Robbie Moore, the tall, beautiful man in the photograph embracing my wife Ginny and me at our wedding in 1990, was simultaneously the wisest and the silliest person I've ever known.

He was a magnificent artist--a painter of pristine, contemplative abstractions -- and a superb, charismatic, passionate teacher. He was a southern gentleman who moved through the world with head-turning grace and elegance. But he was also the mischievous, loving, downright goofy cut-up hugging us on that deck beneath the Brooklyn Bridge where we were married.

Like so many others, I fell under Robbie's magic spell. I just wanted to be around him as much as I could. I became an artist because he made being an artist seem like the most valuable and expansive thing a person could do with their life. He taught me to be fearless in work, and in play -- that joy and beauty are possible if you're willing to take the big chances.

Above all, he was generous, to his friends he gave everything. And yet, he always held something back, a secret part of himself, and the mystery of this was as compelling as it was elusive.

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