The reading public rarely suspects the blood, sweat, and tears that go into designing a book cover. Creating a cover that will entice bookstore browsers to pick up the book and visually convey its essence (in a glance) is ultimately more of an art than a science. The fine online journal Ancora Imparo ran the story of how the cover of my book, Monuments, came into being. Submit your story about what was left behind in your own creative process—whether you make books, sculpture, dances, or strawberry rhubarb pies. Banner image courtesy Flickr Creative Commons.
I’ve recently curated “Luminous Transportations,” a site-specific installation by artist Jo Yarrington that will be on view at Marquand Chapel at Yale Divinity School from April 5 through May 27. The work consists of a ribbon of translucent photographs shot by Yarrington during her peregrinations around the globe over the past twenty years. Read More »
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. Read More »
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
Inspirational speaker Nicole Johnson uses my book, Churches, to deliver a powerful message of hope for everyone who feels 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, and be inspired!For more on Nicole, visit Fresh Brewed Life, hope for the daily grind.
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 determined aspects of the bridge’s design, eighteen hundred schoolchildren made mosaic tiles that adorn the bridge, and thousands watched in wonder as this heroic ten-lane highway bridge rose, Read More »
One thrill 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 of Sierra Leone Read More »
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 by Benson’s grandfather, John Howard Benson (1901-1956), a distinguished calligrapher, sculptor, author, and teacher, who was at the forefront of the renaissance in American stone carving between the wars. Benson learned his craft from his father John Everett Benson (b. 1939), a renowned letter carver who has left his mark on such national treasures as the John F. Kennedy Memorial, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, and the National Gallery of Art. A master in his own right, Nick Benson was commissioned in 2000 to design and carve the inscriptions for the National World War II Memorial on the Mall in Washington, DC which will be dedicated in May 2004.
Note: The complete interview with Nick Benson appears in Monuments: Life in Memory.
JD: How much stone cutting did the World War II Memorial involve?
NB: There are 4,682 letters in total—a lot of lettering—in twenty-two inscription locations. The letters vary in size from three-quarters of an inch tall to more than 19 inches.
JD: What kind of granite was used?
NB: It’s a North Carolina granite called Kershaw. One of the reasons [memorial designer] Friedrich St. Florian chose it is because it has an incredibly large grain. Even from a distance, you can see Read More »
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 design. Read More »
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 Vietnam Veterans Memorial, known simply as the Wall, go because they had a Rick, Joe, or Steve whom they loved and lost. They go to the Wall because the most precious thing they own is the letter like the one Wayne Burwell wrote to the Caruolo family after their son died in his arms. Not all monuments are made of stone.
On summer nights, my older, next-door neighbor Rickey Caruolo would play the guitar on his front steps. He always drew a crowd—women who were mesmerized by his movie-star good looks, his football buddies from Mount Pleasant High, old timers, and children, lots of them. Fifty-two children lived on Lennon Street, and the undisputed god of that street was Rickey. Lennon was a street of families, each contributing four, five, six boomers to the tumble, the backbone of the American dream, fifties style. Read More »
The reading public rarely suspects the blood, sweat, and tears that go into designing a book cover. Creating a cover that will entice bookstore browsers to pick up the book and visually convey its essence (in a glance) is ultimately more of an art than a science. The fine online journal Ancora Imparo ran the story of how the cover of my book, Monuments, came into being. Submit your story about what was left behind in your own creative process—whether you make books, sculpture, dances, or strawberry rhubarb pies. Banner image courtesy Flickr Creative Commons.
What a joy to attend the Inaugural.
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 design. 
