Elliot Iver

The Life and Times of Elliot Iver by Michael Butkus-Bomier
We are all born into the time and place chosen for us by luck or fate. Elliot was born, not unlike some people here today, into a time that was both undergoing rapid change but also, one that did not hold in high esteem those qualities and ideals he would spend his life pursuing.
In 1974, the Sellery Hall dormitory, coed on each floor, girls to the left, boys to the right, as one exited the elevator, anyway, was the place where the adventures began. Maria Butkus, Laurel Kinosian, Brian Lorbiecki, Michael Bomier, Mark Grassl, Susan Barwick, Steve Ashley, and, at mid -first-semester , Elliot Iver, all came together in Time and Space, and went on from there to experience not quite 40 years of a friendship that had an arc of wide range and unbreakable, unshakeable connection.
I was the first person of the group to meet Elliot, as I had a guitar and an amplifier in my room. Quite the draw for young guitar players...
Elliot had roommate troubles second semester, and once dragged his mattress into my room for a night of uninterrupted slumber on the floor.
Maria Butkus lived on the far opposite side of that 8th floor, me being at the stairwell end of the men's side, and she in the same location of the women's side.
And, so the Adventure began. Many of you here today played a part in those early Madison years. To detail them is redundant to the experience of many of us here today. I want to speak about Elliot, the Artist, the Musician, the Animal Lover, the Man in Pursuit of The Ideal.
When one is obsessed with Truth and Beauty, one is not apt to have an easy time of it here in Modern America. The culture is obsessed with money, power, and status. Elliot was not. He was obsessed with the engravings of Durer, the paintings and drawings of Leonardo and Michelangelo, the art of Vermeer, of Rembrandt, of Dali, and the music of Jimi Hendrix, Jerry Garcia, Frank Zappa, and Django Reinhardt.
He was drawn to small animals, cats of every sort, the more curiously rare the better, and ferrets and hedgehogs. These are the pets and companions of an Artist, not someone's employee.
The problem with being an Artist, is that, when you wake up in the morning, or whenever you DO wake up, you are immediately at work. No commute, no time clock, no supervisor to see if you are on time or properly dressed.

That "suited" Elliot just fine. Whenever he had to make the journey from Art to Commerce, it was always a bumpy ride. Art was, and is, Timeless. That makes it both endlessly fascinating and also a quagmire for those who wander in it.
In his time, Elliot found as many of the secrets of the Old Masters as he could. Oil, pigment, varnish, canvas, gesso, brushes; these were the grails he sought to discover. And, he DID, to everyone's astonishment. I mean, who knew there was that much art science to be re-discovered!

Yonkers, Scarsdale, Madison, Chicago. These were the places Elliot lived, loved, worked, painted, drew, played guitars, read, and engaged his friends and fellow online forum writers on the topics closest to both his heart and his mind.
To understand this strong unity of intellectual curiosity, artistic temperament, and emotional commitment is to understand Elliot. His passions, his interests, his friends, on two legs or four, were the focus of his energy, and the reason for his being.

I have heard many eulogies in my life. Some of them are a wondrous revelation of the story of events that shaped a person's life. Others are musings on the reader's own feelings about the person whose life has ended. Still others focus on troubles and difficulties that someone faced in their life, and how their passing has put a welcome end to that struggle.
We here today know Elliot's story, because, in many ways, large and small, it is our story as well. Not just in its particulars of time and place, events or meetings, but in the striving for eloquence, for perfection of
form, for dedication to an Ideal. Elliot's responses to his life's events shaped his actions and decisions. What human being can do otherwise?
If someone we love dies, we are forever changed by their absence. The more important they were to us, the harder and deeper the impact. When something we have been searching for finds us, we are forever grateful, and live in the presence of that love, that fact, that object, that fulfillment, all our lives.

When a life is over, we can see how one person, that one person who is no longer part of our world, has affected us, moved us, wrangled with us, prodded us, how that person has made us laugh or cry, made us feel and think deeply. Without digging into darker corners and clearing away old cobwebs best left to their own dust, we can find the memory of a conversation, a photo, some shared music, meal or libation... ahem...
to make us remember that none of us goes through life together without being touched by one another.
If one is touched by an Artist, one does not soon forget or dismiss it. To love an Artist is the greatest opportunity Life can offer. To be an Artist is both a high honor, and a guarantee for a life of struggles and trials.
Elliot touched us as an Artist, as a musician, as a person who could NOT ABIDE injustice. Just these things alone are recipes for a life that will be lived in opposition to the Straight and Narrow, to the Doctrinaire and Ordinary, to the tyranny of the Everyday and the Commonplace.
To know and believe in Elliot and his life's work was to repudiate at least some of these shackles we are tempted to put on our minds and hearts. To be part of his pursuit of that small detail that will set one apart as a True Seeker and Practitioner, to listen and watch as he talked or wrote online about tube amps, mineral pigments or the inner motivations of his artistic and philosophical heroes, was to see Elliot in his true element.
Some of us lived with Elliot. Some of us lived with him for only a little while. Some lived with him, then left, then lived with him again. One of us, Kaz, lived with him for a long time. It is her commitment to Elliot's well-being that we honor her most today. Without her unflagging and selfless love, Elliot's and by extension all of our lives, would have been so much less, so much smaller, so much more difficult.
Maria's relationship to Elliot was caused, in part, by my own indifference to her interest in me. That took rather a long time to work itself out, shall we say.





Her interest in Elliot's life began that year in school, and changed, ebbed and flowed, but never lapsed. She watched him flourish or flounder, succeed or fail, paint or not paint, take classes and work, or opt out of the economy with which he had such a contentious relationship, shall we say.
When I moved here to Madison to be with Maria, I got Elliot as part of the package. Well, I had met him first so I could not exactly object, now could I?
As Elliot began to paint again, I made sure he had a standing commission, so that there could be no rest for the Artist who, as it turned out, made his final six paintings for our home, and for the home of his partner's parents in Japan.
Take whatever you have brought here with you today from Elliot out into the wider world. Share an idealistic vision, an artistic outlook, a compassionate worldview, a dedication to accuracy in all details of true importance. To do so will be to honor the memory and the legacy of someone whose passing we solemnly commemorate today, but whose impact on our lives will go on.
As we continue in our own life's work, we can find chances to share the Elliot Effect with anyone who needs it, who shares the insider's curiosity, or who needs support or counsel, or who simply needs to be cajoled into following their own true path.
Elliot Iver did these things for himself. We did these things for him. He did them for us. We owe it not only to his memory but to ourselves and those around us to share, even display, the legacy of his ideals and the gifts that he shared with us, and we with him in return.
As the Abrahamic tradition says, "May his memory be for a blessing."
Shalom.


Madison - Elliot N. Iver, age 58, died peacefully, at sunset, on April 25, 2013, at St. Mary's Hospital in Madison, WI, surrounded by his loved ones.
Elliot was born in Yonkers, NY, and graduated from Scarsdale High School.
He attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and MATC, pursuing fine art painting, and landscape and architectural design.
His intellect, quick wit, and his passion for creating paintings and drawings, and playing music on the guitar and harp were all reflections of his quest for beauty and light tempered by his tender and compassionate heart. He loved animals and always had a pet by his side.
Elliot is survived by his loving and devoted partner of 22 years, Kazu Kitano; his brother, Michael (Cindy) Iver; his nephew, Jeremy; niece, Katelyn; his sister, Lorraine, and a close circle of long-time friends.
He was preceded in death by his parents, Kate and Morton Iver, and his grandparents.
A funeral will be held in the Jewish tradition on Sunday, April 28, beginning at noon, at the CRESS FUNERAL HOME, 3610 Speedway Rd., Madison. Burial will be immediately afterward at Sunset Memory Gardens on Mineral Point Rd. in Madison.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Dane Co. Humane Society.
The family and friends wish to offer our most heartfelt thanks to Brooke and Patrick, and all the staff at St. Mary's MICU for their respectful and compassionate care of Elliot and those closest to him.