What a joy to attend the Inaugural. The frigid cold instantly gave everyone something in common–staying warm–and conspired with Obama’s message: We were one, and how! Everyone in that ocean of humanity knew that the stranger pressed up against us was a source of warmth. I’d say it was a good start.
Seeing the Mall fully activated, fully [...]
Author Archives: Judith Dupre
Architect for Change
January 22, 2009 – 8:03 am
Art increases the sense of our common humanity
November 17, 2008 – 7:51 pm
Author Michael Chabon, a member of Obama’s Arts Policy Committee, describes the critical importance of the arts at this moment in our nation’s history:
“Every grand American accomplishment, every innovation that has benefited and enriched our lives, every lasting social transformation, every moment of profound insight any American visionary ever had into a way
October 15, 2008 – 12:09 pm
Inspirational speaker Nicole Johnson uses my book, Churches, to deliver a powerful message of hope for women who feel invisible and taken for granted. I don’t know Nicole, but what she took away from Churches and how she brought the lessons of the Gothic cathedral builders to bear on today’s problems, blew me away. Watch, [...]
The New I-35W Bridge!
September 15, 2008 – 4:45 pm
Building a bridge is a monumental undertaking, and there is something inherent in projects of this size and scope that makes people want to participate in their creation. In the case of the sleek, new I-35W crossing over the Mississippi that opened in Minneapolis this week, Twin City residents engaged in a day-long discussion that [...]
Amistad Returns
June 24, 2008 – 10:44 am
One of the thrills of the writing life is receiving pictures of one’s “babies” taken in faraway places. Bill Pinkney, the visionary behind the recreation of the Amistad schooner as a floating, living memorial to civil rights, presented a copy of Monuments, which tells Amistad’s story, to Josephine Kargbo of the Monuments and Relics Commission [...]
Nick Benson Interview
November 6, 2007 – 6:28 am
A third-generation stone carver and calligrapher, Nick Benson (b. 1964) creates elegant hand-carved tombstones and architectural lettering for public buildings, memorials, and monuments. He owns and operates the John Stevens Shop, a historic stone carving establishment in Newport, Rhode Island. The shop was run by eight generations of Stevenses until 1927 when it was purchased [...]
Sunshine Skyway Bridge
July 26, 2006 – 10:38 pm
From a distance it looks like a futuristic schooner, sails aloft, barely skimming the surface of the water as it crosses Tampa Bay. Compared as well to the strings of a harp or an open fan, the triangular plane of stays that support the sleek Sunshine Skyway Bridge are, however described, a triumph of engineering [...]
First Clothes
July 5, 2005 – 10:36 pm
Given how old I was feeling on my 42nd birthday, it was probably a mistake spending the day sorting through my son Emmet’s baby clothes, three bags full or, as he once sang the nursery rhyme, three bag fool. I was a three-bag fool all right, crying from the outset of this unavoidable rite of [...]
One Soldier’s Story
January 5, 2005 – 10:34 pm
One Soldier’s Story is about my childhood neighbor, Rickey Caruolo, who was one of the first to die in the Vietnam War. It is a snapshot of a more innocent time in America and an intimate portrait of one soldier who stands in for all the great guys killed in Vietnam. Those who visit the [...]
Painting as Prayer: an interview with Father John Giuliani
July 5, 2004 – 10:31 pm
After reading Thomas Merton’s Seven Storey Mountain while an art student at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute, John Giuliani’s life changed. He put down his paintbrush, entered the seminary, and served as a diocesan priest for two decades. Inflamed with the desire to communicate the dignity of all persons, especially those whom society has marginalized, he began [...]