Category: anecdotes

The lady who gave up

Fresh off the boat that summer; I was a wide-eyed kid in New York for the first time. I gorged myself on galleries and museums. I was as fresh and raw as a nineteen-year-old can be. One day I was in a Madison Avenue gallery when an elegantly dressed older woman entered. As I was the only…

My Prison Studio

As a member of a Federal works program, I taught art in community centers around Dayton, Ohio. My fellow teachers were performers, musicians, and artists. The director was a dancer and leader of a troupe when not directing us. Artists rotated weekly to the centers, usually in pairs. Some centers were plum assignments filled with…

Book Thief

 In the summer before third grade, we moved to a small town far from Dayton.  The ramshackle house we rented was across the street from the public library.  With its pink-marble columns, the library seemed to exist in another world.  I began spending all of my free time there.   My frequent visits to the library…