arts
In Her
Mind's
Eye
An uncommon disorder robbed
Lisa Fittipaldi of her vision and her will
to live---until she discovered her
talent for painting

  For two years after a rare autoimmune disease left her suddenly blind, Lisa Fittipaldi would wake up each morning, open her eyes and turn toward her bedroom window.  And then, she says, "it would dawn on me, like a bucket of ice being dumped on my head, that I could no longer see.  I'd immediately go into a funk."
     To try to lift her spirits ("Iworried she felt her life was over"), Fittipaldi's husband, Al, encouraged her to find a hoby, to reach out to friends--all to no avail.  Finally, one day in 1995, after learning that psychologists often recommend art as therapy for depression, he brought home a set of watercolors.  "I threw them at her and said,
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