The Words We Are Willing To Hear

The Words We Are Willing To Hear

Back in the late nineteen-sixties, I clipped a cartoon from The New Yorker, at a time that urban renewal was doing its worst in a variety of Boston neighborhoods. The picture was a pair of little old ladies sitting on a train, one speaking to the other. The caption...
Paul Caponigro 1932-2024

Paul Caponigro 1932-2024

Obituaries mark with increasing insistence the evanescence of my own memories. A notice reminds me of this musician or that scholar or politician or athlete. On Friday, November 29, 2024, the day after Thanksgiving, it was the loss of the great photographer, Paul...
Hugh Hayden: Home Work

Hugh Hayden: Home Work

I am good—pretty good—at keeping my hands in my pockets or clasped behind my back while in an art museum. Rules keep the art safe. Even so, between my poor eyesight and exuberance in the presence of objects of wonder, I have driven a number of guards on two continents...
One Person’s Nude

One Person’s Nude

One pleasant morning, in the late 1980s, I started my work as the Education Curator at the Des Moines Art Center in Iowa. The phone rang; it appeared we had a problem with an upcoming tour of elementary school children who were also scheduled for a studio-art...