In the summer of 2016, Faye Crosby, newly retired after six years as provost of Cowell College, found herself in England. She paid a call on Jean and Jasper Rose in Bath. Jasper showed Faye many of his watercolors painted from memory, and Faye was captivated by the whimsy and wit of the portraits. With a small grant, she was able in 2017 to travel back to Bath with Cheryl Doering and Robert Lange. Eric Thiermann loaned the team some equipment and provided professional guidance so that Robert, Cheryl and Faye were able to record Jasper’s comments on the people he had painted, and to scan the portraits for display.
Although he was ill at the time of the Americans’ visit, Jasper rallied valiantly and provided as much description as he was able. Subsequently a team of dedicated students – including Kevin Tie, Emily Aranda, and Ian Johnson – extracted snippets from many of the descriptions and worked to attach the voice recordings to the scans of individual portraits. Robert Lange and Blithe Brandon edited the students’ work, and the produced the resulting application.
The work was exhibited in the Eloise Pickard Smith Gallery at UCSC in the spring of 2019 with reproductions of the images, while simultaneous access to Jasper's comments was made possible using tablets to access the app. The exhibit was underwritten by generous contributions from Kathleen Rose, who shares a name but not a blood line with Jasper and Jean, and also from Sentinel Printers and the Gary D. Licker Memorial Fund. Provost Alan Christy used grants and contributions to the provost’s discretionary fund to allow the show to be staffed.
Subsequently the application was incorporated into the biographic site Jack Daley produced of Jasper Rose.