Penny Proddow's Death

A very bad day yesterday, when I learned that Penny Proddow, jewelry editor for InStyle, lost her battle with ovarian cancer.

I'm looking at two small sketches that rest on the base of my computer monitor. Three saguaro cactuses tower in the foreground of one, placed in context by a violet mountain and cerulean sky. In the second, a long, deep purple ridgeline looms over a solitary mesquite dignifying the scrublands.
Penny gave these to me when I ran across her at breakfast during the Tucson gem shows last year. At her table in the hotel buffet, she was doing two of the things she loved best, drawing and planning the day with her inseparable friend and colleague, Marion Fasel, who together with Penny constitutes the respected jewelry editorial staff at Instyle.
Penny loved the fine arts in a unpretentious way that I've seldom experienced in my life. She loved art for art's sake, whether teaching at the Met, which she did for years, or putting life's daily occurrences into context with a quote from classical literature or ballet. Because of who she was, it never seemed affected. Instead, it always raised the wonderful, incredible possibility that some people do care about the more important things in life.
I had met Penny many times through our work in jewelry. But I got to know her best a bit over a year ago when we traveled in a group to South Africa and Botswana with De Beers. I quickly got to enjoying teasing her about things like being the only person able to look perfectly assembled in the middle of a Land Rover safari trek. Penny had a great sense of humor to go with her modesty and fashion sense.
The next time I saw her after our trip, a number of us got together for lunch to reminisce. Penny arrived wearing a necklace of interconnected wire "elephants" that she had fashioned based on sketches she had drawn in Africa. I loved them, so of course she immediately unlinked four of them to give to each member of my family. We still have them hanging from the chandelier in the breakfast room. My sons love them.
What a very sad thing to lose such a great person. I've been watching Lance Armstrong's return to professional cycling, which he started by racing first a month ago in Australia then a week ago in the Tour of