This kind, creative, introspective woman, Gloria Vanderbilt, passed away one year ago today. I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to photograph her and her work on multiple occasions. She was always inviting and intriguing. This is a portrait I took of her in 2012, when she was a youthful 88 years old, shortly before one of her final exhibits. Many pieces in the show were inspired by “hiraeth,” a Welsh word with an ambiguous meaning that she described to me, beautifully, in the words of a writer she admired named Val Bethell. “It is a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; a nostalgia, the grief, for the lost places in your past ... the language of the soul, the call from the inner self, half forgotten, it speaks from the rocks, from the earth, from the trees, and in the waves. It’s always there.” . . . #gloriavanderbilt #artist #icon @andersoncooper @gloriavanderbilt @gloriavanderbiltstudio