My friend Vera Davidescu, artist extraordinaire, and graphic artist

Vera is my cool friend from Bologna, Italy, and she has designed the cover for two of my CD's. Recently she did the stage design for Nabucco at the Teatro comunale in Modena. We've been friends for many years, and that's how I met Vera: I was in college in Romania, I think a sophomore at the Bucharest Conservatory. To make some money, I got into selling greeting cards, on the black market, since no private business was allowed by the communist government. A friend of mine was making them; the two of us would stand at a subway station, outside, trying to convince passers by of the artistic value of our cards. I had a briefcase containing about 10-15 cards and about 150 lei (the Romanian currency) - in case I got arrested and the police confiscated the merchandise, and he would stand guard about 30 feet away and hold the rest of the merchandise. The thing is, you could not find on the market anything decent, and our cards were really cool, colorful and with Christmas subjects, not only stupid communist wishes, such as "may we celebrate the great achievements of the working class led by the communist party and its most precious and wise son, comrade Nicole Ceausescu." If anyone asked me about the cards, I would say: "yes, they are hand made, I made them myself." Now, this was in December, and the temperature was about -10 Celsius (really cold).

And then, this girl, maybe 14, walks by with a little kid in tow, and she asks me the same thing. And she says "I go to the Nicolae Tonitza art school, and your cards are really cool." I asked her for her name, and I made a super effort to remember it, and then, 5-6 months later, I got her number from an old phone book, since she had a rare last name - Davidescu. I called the first number, and here she was, on the phone, not believing that I tracked her down. Then we became really good friends, and we ended up doing a lot of artistic events together, street happenings in Bucharest after the communist government fell, and shows at the Conservatory or the National Museum of Art in Bucharest. While in high school, she did some five incredible illustrations from the Divina Comedia, all in ink, black and white, they were powerful..scenes of people with their heads turned backwards and, various stages of pain. Vera just gave those drawings to me. Sadly, they were lost. I have two great paintings of hers in the house. Anyway, you can see some of her art at: http://www.veradavidescu.com/