This photo haunts me. This is my father in his late twenties doing two things he loved—boating and smoking. The photo was taken somewhere in Southeastern Virginia when I was just nine or ten years old. The nicotine inside that pipe would kill him several years later. But it’s the expression that haunts me. Is…
Our horrific American past comes to life here at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. After passing a sculpture by Ghanaian artist Kwame Akoto-Bamfo depicting the trauma of slavery, I entered the open-air memorial to stand face-to-face with our past. A slab of copper-colored material, in the shape of a tombstone, hangs—each placed beside…
I have always been mesmerized by Dale Chihuly’s art. The dazzling way he captures color and light. The whimsical shapes and forms. The spectacular statements and reflections. The exhibitions in the last few years of Chihuly’s glass forms in natural settings manage to merge art and nature in such a unique and contemplative way. A…
Memorial Day, 19-something. Flags, barbeques, sparklers, red-white-and-blue dresses. Smiles. I am a typical white American girl who grew up in a typical American household, sometimes lower and sometimes middle-class, in a typical southern-ish town. I didn’t understand the privilege I had. I didn’t understand how others were denied that same privilege. I didn’t understand hunger…
