There was a drawing corner in the Neue Nationalgalerie, set up for children. We had been on our feet for hours, so we sat down in it, mostly to rest. Then it seemed like it might be fun to actually draw something.
Stan went first, on the grounds that a rainbow is the one thing he can reliably draw. Then the sky, then the sun, and then he ran out of things he was confident about and asked Felix to take over. Felix drew the two of us, the tree, and all the flowers.
The paper was terrible — the kind you use once and leave behind — and Felix assumed that was exactly what would happen to it. Stan took it home instead. It has been framed on our wall ever since.
When it came to the invitation, Stan's first idea was to hire a caricaturist to paint the two of us in the style of the drawing — the same scene, but done properly, by someone who could actually draw. It was Felix who asked the obvious question: why not just use the original?
So we did. Stan put the draft together in PowerPoint, and Raka took it from there and made it beautiful. It is the least professional artwork either of us has ever sent to a printer, and we would not swap it for anything.
Thank you, Raka.
A Japanese garden, a stranger's banner, and two years of waiting.