In a sense, the bar is Kelly’s throne, her palace. She is the Queen Of The Bog, she sails effortlessly from the bar to the kitchen to the score of tables filled with people, she seems to be everywhere at once, cheerful and  steady. She says the trick to it is to never get rattle, to simply accept what  comes.

Photographing Kelly is something of a family event at the bar, the people at the bar join in, laughing teasing her and me, but they are proud of her and happy to see her get some recognition. I went behind the bar tonight to get this photograph, it has a kind of Coney Island feel to it, a tableau, really, the women smiling, the bar full, the TV’s on, Kelly smiling, as usual.

She has a lot of friends. They get a kick out of the photographs. I’m still mulling a Kelly portrait show someday.

She is certainly one of the steadiest people I know. I brought her the portrait of her that I hung in the portrait show at the Round House, she was surprised and pleased I think. It might go into her daughter’s bedroom, “she still likes me, I think,” Kelly said.