Not only is Sister Wendy a real person, she's a really interesting one.

But perhaps most annoying, it wasn't the same nose her sister Wendy, two years younger, was born with.

Sister Wendy suggests how terrific death must be - "to leap into the darkness!"

Sister Wendy smiles back, grateful for this one aspect of celebrity.

Sister Wendy says she likes it when "wonderful sweet people" thank her for helping them to understand paintings.

My sister Wendy died last year, after three months in a coma, from head injuries she sustained while skiing.

She and her older sister Wendy are waitresses for their mother, Virginia.

She allows the plans to go ahead, on the condition that Sister Wendy takes care of her failing health.

Yet if Sister Wendy speaks without a prepared text before each painting, her approach is anything but improvised.

Sister Wendy's average day is not quite as plush as the galleries and hotels she visits in the outside world.