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Boston Globe
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Former ICA director: What is driving Trump's venom against the arts?
Museums, theaters, orchestras, and dance companies employ hundreds of thousands of people and serve communities across the country through inspiration, education, training, and convening. At the same time, artists individually are among the lowest-earning sectors of the economy — and In the federal budget, arts funding makes up an infinitesimal fraction of spending. The NEA's Advertisement Rather, the ineffable power of the sector lies in art itself, in the creative energy it represents and releases, and in the role it has played — over and over — in amplifying issues and movements that are part and parcel of resistance and hope. Advertisement Hannah Arendt, in her 1951 book 'The Origins of Totalitarianism,' examined Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia in a way that feels all too relevant today. We learn that authoritarianism flourishes on loneliness, it offers a simplified world view divided into 'us' and 'them,' and it uses control of history and the arts as strategies to reinforce and inculcate a message of fear and obedience. Contemporary art of all kinds, on the contrary, possesses a truth-telling power to shape and narrate our shared history — a power to change whose stories are told, and by whom. The arts can speak to audiences long excluded from our walls and stages. And they are particularly important for America's young people. Today across America, cultural organizations are tackling loneliness, pervasive since the COVID-19 pandemic. Museums, concert halls, and theaters offer space for collective learning and gathering. They present programs for young people and elders that foster social interaction and creativity. And they support artists as they make and share their work with others. I recently stepped down after 27 years leading the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. In my experiences at the ICA and with other arts organizations, I have long seen one key form of recognition of the power of arts: the recognition that almost everyone shares when they see their child, niece, or neighbor playing in the third-grade recorder concert, bringing home a drawing for the refrigerator door, or reciting a poem at school. It is the recognition of creativity at work. It is witnessing the joy of self expression. And it is the relief of knowing our children have the inner resources needed to cope with the complexity of their futures. Advertisement I trace my own career as a museum director to early exposure to the arts: first in after-school painting lessons, and later in visits to the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, my hometown — where my world exploded as I encountered painting and sculpture from around the world and across time. These were truly aha moments that have lasted a lifetime. That is one reason why programs for young people have been central to my work. The ICA launched its Many arts and museum education programs in the United States have long been supported by federal grants, now being dismantled by the Trump administration. Support for the arts is an investment in our nation's long-term creativity. It is vital for the immediate survival for many arts organizations and individuals and for the recognition that the arts sustain us all. Equally important, though, freedom of expression is a tested antidote to a single authoritarian voice, determined to isolate and divide us. That is why the arts, in all their glorious forms, are both so feared and so necessary.
Boston Globe
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Free things to do Memorial Day week: Self-defense, museum admission, and burgers
CULTURE, COMPED This Memorial Day, tickets to enter multiple local cultural favorites will be free. The Museum of Fine Arts invites all Mass. residents to join guides, curators, speakers, and artists for a day of tunes, connections, and interactive activities, including the opportunity to make your own embossed metal sculpture. The Institute of Contemporary Art in the Seaport will also grant free entry for guests who want to explore innovative art with a view. May 26. MFA, 465 Huntington Ave. ; ICA, 25 Harbor Shore Drive. Get Love Letters: The Newsletter A weekly dispatch with all the best relationship content and commentary – plus exclusive content for fans of Love Letters, Dinner With Cupid, weddings, therapy talk, and more. Enter Email Sign Up LIFE IS A CABARET If you're not a fan of the large, rowdy crowds at concerts or festivals, the cabaret may be the musical immersion you've been waiting for. At the Club Café, these live music experiences are a common occurrence, and next Tuesday, the bistro will feature Crystin Gilmore, who also performs in SpeakEasy Stage's play 'Jaja's African Hair Braiding.' The triple-threat actress, singer, and dancer will perform from a repertoire of soulful classics, including tunes by James Brown, Aretha Franklin, and Billie Holiday. May 27, 6:30-7:30 p.m. 209 Columbus Ave. Advertisement SUNSHINE BEATS If you missed out on tickets to this year's high-demand (and costly) music festivals, no need to fret. The Esplanade Association is teaming up with the Department of Conservation and Recreation once again to host the GroundBeat Concert Series. Local musicians and artists will take the stage at the Hatch Memorial Shell for concerts across three more weeks, including this Wednesday's lineup of world sounds including reggae and Caribbean jazz. May 28, 6-8 p.m. Charles River Esplanade, Hatch Memorial Shell, Beacon Street and Beaver Place. Advertisement BOP TO THE TOP Whether you're graduating this year, in the future, or passed the milestone long ago, there's nothing like watching Disney's 'High School Musical' to evoke toe-tapping nostalgia. At Trident Booksellers & Café, attendees can reminisce on the angst and elation of their school days at the bookstore's free screening night while singing along to those classic hits. May 29, 7-9 p.m. 338 Newbury St. Downtown Boston burger joint Big Grin will be giving out free burgers to the first 100 customers this Saturday for National Hamburger Day. Handout T ASTEFUL HOLIDAY This week, the country celebrates another important holiday: National Hamburger Day. At The Lineup, a downtown restaurant collection, Big Grin, the location's burger joint, will be serving up free burgers to the first 100 customers. Even those who miss the limited giveaway won't walk away hungry — vouchers for free crinkle-cut fries are a welcome concession. May 31, 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. 115 Federal St. EN GARDE Knowing self-defense techniques can make a difference in a dangerous situation, and the City of Boston and the NAAAP are teaming up to provide a free defensive action and de-escalation workshop. Verbal, nonverbal, and physical skills will be taught by Nic Emmons, owner of Waltham's On Point Krav Maga martial arts school. May 31, noon-2 p.m. 161 Harvard Ave #13b, Allston. Advertisement LOVELY MEETINGS Cambridge's romance bookstore, Lovestruck Books, will be hosting an event with five writers, giving local bookworms the chance to meet their favorite authors — or maybe fall in love with new ones. In attendance will be Aashna Avachat, YA author and Harvard alum; indie writer Caroline Frank; purveyor of gothic stories Cat Scully; Elle Thrasher, a romantasy writer; and self-proclaimed 'Kitchen Witch' Dawn Aurora Hunt. May 31, 3-5 p.m. 44 Brattle St., Cambridge. The annual Beacon Hill Art Walk will fill the historic neighborhood with art this Sunday, June 1. Handout ART WALK The first day of June means more than just the steady approach of summer. Next Sunday, the Beacon Hill neighborhood will inaugurate the new month with free art demonstrations, including outdoor galleries, live music ranging from folk to classical, and displays of various styles and mediums. These displays will be scattered across the Hill, with starting points at 135½ Charles St. and the corner of Cambridge and West Cedar streets. June 1, noon-6 p.m. Beacon Hill. Send info on free events and special offers at least 10 days in advance to . Marianna Orozco can be reached at
Miami Herald
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
ICA Miami showcases pioneering female artists this spring
Things To Do ICA Miami showcases pioneering female artists this spring (Photo by Marc Domage) At the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, the future is female – at least as far as its upcoming season goes. The art museum in the Design District, which recently announced a major expansion, will stage exhibitions on two pioneering female artists starting in May. Open since May 1 is a comprehensive retrospective of Colombian-born Olga de Amaral's work. The show came to Miami from Paris, where it debuted at the prestigious Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain last fall, and delves into six decades of work from the fiber and textile artist. 'Olga de Amaral is someone who really revolutionized weaving and textile art,' says curator Stephanie Seidel. 'At first (she) made more fabrics and designs for architecture and interiors, but then developed an independent language of tapestries out of that.' 'Bruma D1,' 2018 Linen, gesso, acrylic, Japanese paper, and wood220 × 90 × 200 cm. Olga de Amaral. Casa Amaral, Bogotá. (Photo courtesy of Lisson Gallery) Though the show is meant to span de Amaral's entire career, Seidel says the inclusion of two recent series of works is quite exciting. The Estelas ('stelae'), sculptures covered in gold leaf, are meant to evoke ancient Mesoamerican landmarks, while the Brumas ('mists') are a sort of three-dimensional deconstruction of a traditional tapestry, suspending stings of colorful fabric from the ceiling and create patterns that shift depending on viewpoint. The show also includes important large-scale works, one of which has a local connection. Coraza en morados, from 1977, was commissioned by Miami's Art in Public Places program and displayed in Miami International Airport. 'We're excited to bring this show here in light of this connection, and obviously this influence of Latin America that is very present in a city like Miami,' says Seidel. 'It's exciting to showcase her work here. And there's other loans from local collections included in the show that were not part of the Paris show.' Olga de Amaral, Casa Amaral, Bogotá, Colombia, 2013. (Photo by Diego Amaral, courtesy of ICA, Miami) De Amaral studied architecture in Bogotá before studying at the Cranbrook School in Michigan, where she absorbed influences from the Saarinen family and other modernists. This background allowed her to create fiber and textile art with a sculptural, three-dimensional presence. Her work gained her recognition in the art world; she became the first Latin American woman to show at the Lausanne Tapestry Biennial in 1967, and two years later was part of a major group show of textile artists at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The architectural theme is also present in the exhibition design, a 'forest' inspired by the views from the ICA's third floor galleries that also references de Amaral's work. The design was headed up by Paris-based Lebanese architect Lina Ghotmeh, whose resume includes the famed Stone Garden residential tower in Beirut and, most recently, the Bahrain Pavilion at the Osaka Expo 2025. 'Núcleo 1,' 2015. Linen, gesso, acrylic, and Japanese paper, 130 × 180 cm. Olga de Amaral. Casa Amaral, Bogotá. (Photo by Diego Amaral/courtesy of ICA, Miami) Another all-encompassing show opening on Saturday, May 10 is dedicated to the late Mildred Thompson, a pioneering yet underseen African-American artist who worked in a variety of mediums. A born-and-raised Floridian originally from Jacksonville, Thompson began her art studies at Howard University and from there embarked on a career full of exploration. Her work explores a broad range of interests, everything from the microbiology of the human body to the infinite cosmos. Mildred Thompson, 'Radiation Explorations 6,' 1994. Oil on canvas Overall: 97 ½ x 143 ⅝ inches; three panels. The Mildred Thompson Estate. (Photo courtesy of Galerie Lelong & Co. ) 'I think there's just this incredible curiosity and understanding of these abstract phenomena,' says Seidel. 'Some paintings, they could be like a super crazy microscopic view of an atom, and then others feel like you're looking into the vastness of space. But to come up with a language to capture this is really kind of what connects all of it.' That breadth of topics is also reflected in the range of mediums Thompson worked in. Much of the show will consist of paintings, from her Music of the Spheres series which celebrates the planets to the Wood Pictures made from salvaged materials that recall architectural facades. But the show also includes music by Thompson. An original electronic music composition called 'Cosmos Calling,' which Seidel calls 'a journey through the soundscape of space inspired by the NASA Voyager recordings,' will be played in the galleries. Though the shows were not planned to be interlinked, Seidel believes visitors will find connections between the female artists. Mildred Thompson, 'Music of the Spheres: Mars,' 1996. Oil on wood. Overall: 96 x 144 inches; three panels. The Mildred Thompson Estate. (Photo courtesy Galerie Lelong & Co.) 'I think there's always interesting dialogues,' she says. 'Olga and Mildred, they're all roughly a similar generation, which I think is interesting because it shows extremely diverse approaches to making art, which is super exciting for me. So it's rather like opening up, for lack of a better word, the kaleidoscope of all these options to explore and offering just a very broad view of what contemporary art can be.' If you go: WHAT: 'Olga de Amaral' and 'Mildred Thompson: Frequencies' WHERE: Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, 61 NE 41st St., Miami WHEN: 'Olga de Amaral' and 'Mildred Thompson: Frequencies' (opens May 10). Both through Sunday, Oct. 12. COST: Free INFORMATION: 305-901-5272; is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music, and more. Don't miss a story at
New York Times
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Bringing a California Community to Life Through Airbrushing and Burlap
James G. Leventhal, the director of the Institute of Contemporary Art, San José, first saw Esteban Raheem Abdul Raheem Samayoa's charcoal drawings when he visited the pt.2 Gallery in Oakland about three years ago. When Leventhal learned that the artist had a studio upstairs, he went to meet him. 'James was super appreciative of my work,' Samayoa recalled in a recent interview at his current studio in West Oakland. 'He had such nice things to say, and he was so supportive.' That's a bit of an understatement. Leventhal, a generally enthusiastic person, practically levitates when talking about Samayoa, 30, whom he compares to Francisco Goya, the famous Spanish painter of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Samayoa's drawings of dogs and the people he grew up with in Sacramento evoke humanity, he said, in much the way that Goya's paintings did. 'One of the really remarkable things about Esteban's practice is he has this almost singular ability to mimic the real world through two-dimensional tools,' Leventhal said. 'The way that he captures a dog's fur, the way he captures the edge of the paw on the floor, it's so realistic, but it's a trick. The ability to render the real world using charcoal is utter trickery. But it becomes transcendent if you do it right. I was visiting the other day, and I was like, 'Dude, you're as good as Goya. This is unbelievable.'' Leventhal's enthusiasm helped Samayoa land at the museum, also known as the ICA, for his first institutional solo exhibition much sooner than expected: Just six months elapsed between an initial studio visit from Zoë Latzer, the show's curator, and its opening day in late March. Samayoa decided to pivot away from charcoal toward other horizons for his ICA debut, 'Blood Be Water,' which runs through Aug. 24. He worked furiously to create more than 40 new pieces, which include large airbrushed works, small oil pastels and ceramics, a newer medium for him. The gallery is divided into two parts. One has dark purple walls hung with black-and-white works. The other features walls and a wooden pyramid installation covered in yellow mud. Colored pastel works and paintings on burlap hang on the textured walls, while ceramics line the pyramid. Samayoa's exposure to the world of art exhibitions began in 2017 when he moved with a cousin from Sacramento to Oakland, where they cooked in restaurants while Samayoa worked on his art. In 2019, Guillaume Ollivier, the founder of Good Mother Gallery, which was then in Oakland but has since relocated to Los Angeles, saw Samayoa's work on Instagram and offered him a solo show. 'We hadn't seen anything like it before, and we kind of look for outliers,' he said. It wasn't just Samayoa's art that impressed Ollivier. The gallerist called the artist sweet, soft-spoken and considerate, and said his visual language made sense. 'I would go to shows sometimes, and I have no idea what they're talking about; You know, we're a gallery from Oakland and dudes from Oakland,' Ollivier said. 'He was just painting dogs — like, happy dogs, sad dogs, aggressive dogs. And within that imagery, there were people shaking hands, people hugging, people smiling. People dressed a certain way, hanging out with dogs that we see in our community.' Ollivier gave Samayoa a space in the gallery. 'He jumped right in, being kind of a family member to all of us,' Ollivier said. 'Now we always check in on him and make sure that he's growing the way he wants to grow. If he needs help with anything, we're always there for him.' In 2023, Samayoa had a solo show at pt.2 of charcoal works, colorful paintings that delved into his Guatemalan and Mexican heritage and plaster casts of praying hands that explored his recent conversion to Islam. With his charcoals, he told me at the time, he wanted to put people like his friends on gallery walls and emphasize their beauty. Samayoa again celebrates his community in his current ICA show. Its title riffs on the saying that 'blood is thicker than water' and nods to how his friends gave him the closeness and support that his family couldn't provide. 'I dealt with a lot of turmoil with my mother and father,' he said. 'She, unfortunately, struggled with addiction a lot of my life, and my father was just in and out.' People in the neighborhood took care of him, he said, and he often stayed over at neighbors' houses for the school year. 'I remember my friend, he had a cool mother and father, and the father would make dinners for them all the time, and they would all sit at the table,' he said. 'I was like, 'Wow, what? This is so much fun for me.'' Samayoa started making realistic drawings of cars and faces when he was three. He didn't go to art school but took a drawing class in 2015 at Sacramento City College and found that he loved working with charcoal. He described the airbrushed paintings of groups of people in the ICA show as dreamlike. Some of the figures are based on his friends; some are historical figures like Malcolm X. He had wanted to push himself to work in the medium, as well as with ceramics and color. 'People would come up to me and say, 'Hey, you're the charcoal artist, right?'' Samayoa said. 'Even though I appreciated that, I just knew that I had more inside of me that I wanted to show.' The ICA exhibition also presents a documentary about Samayoa directed by Mancy Gant, who met him at a Los Angeles gallery. When Gant, a photographer and director who has worked for Playboy and The Fader, saw on Instagram that Samayoa was looking for someone to make a video, he offered to do it for free. 'He's just a really warm person, a genuine person,' Gant said. 'I felt that in his work, also.' Gant brought in Tyler McPherron, a cinematographer, as the director of photography. They planned on making a video of maybe 10 minutes. It's double that. McPherron said Samayoa, who he and Gant call Raheem or Rah, is a magnetic subject. 'Rah talked about the film he wanted to make to give credit to collaborators and his community,' he said. 'He's gone through a lot, and that's made him an authentic and vulnerable person.' Samayoa readily displays that vulnerability with his many close friends, said Jereme Mendez, an artist and designer who is among them. Mendez said he views Samayoa as a mentor always ready to share insecurities as well as triumphs. 'It's not a competitive race,' Mendez said. 'We feed off each other. For this show, I feel like I'm on the sidelines with a big sign saying, 'Go, Esteban!' There's a lot to cheer for. Samayoa is in a group show at the Anthony Gallery in Chicago curated by Lauren Halsey and will do two residencies later in the year, one at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art and one at the Macedonia Institute in the Hudson Valley of New York. 'This is the most sure I've ever been about a path, even though it's still scary to take a chance on art,' he said. 'I want a 401(k) and big savings and all that, but I'm just proud that I get to wake up and do what I love most.'
Boston Globe
26-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
After nearly 30 years, Jill Medvedow says goodbye to the ICA amid a fraught moment for American culture
Still, the opening celebrations that night — her last in the director's chair — would stir emotions. 'It's not an easy moment,' she said. 'For me, leadership has always been the ability to both compartmentalize and to care deeply. So right now I'm trying to lean into the compartmentalization, or I think I could just weep tonight. And I think I just might anyway.' Advertisement Medvedow is a reluctant nostalgist, but if she'd permit those around her a few words of appreciation, this is what she'd hear: 'Jill has truly been a once-in-a-generation visionary director,' said Steve Corkin, the president of the ICA's board. 'She has always put civic life first, the museum second, and herself a distant third.' Installation view, "Believers: Artists and the Shakers," the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, 2025. Mel Taing 'Jill paints a vision of what's possible, and then fully believes in it with her whole heart,' said Chris Smith, executive director of Boston After School and Beyond, a nonprofit program for Boston Public School students that provides outside-the-classroom learning. 'She sees potential in you that you might not see yourself, and keeps pushing.' 'Jill leads with authenticity,' said Eva Respini, Medvedow's deputy director and chief curator until 2023,'You always know where you stand with her, and what she stands for.' Advertisement There is, of course, more where that came from. Twenty-seven years spent anywhere, by anyone, leaves a mark. Medvedow, though, is not just anyone, and she's made sure the ICA isn't just any place. She arrived with a mission to infuse the city's art world with a sense of civic purpose, and that animating force doesn't end when she walks out the door. On a recent afternoon in her office, Medvedow was looking squarely at the moment the country finds itself in now. 'I have always invented my own jobs,' she said. 'I thought, after the ICA, I wouldn't have to. But I do think now that I will.' Jill Medvedow in 1998, when she had just taken the reins at the ICA. Here, she poses for a charity auction to benefit the museum, then still in its old home in a former police station on Boylston Street in the Back Bay. CHIN, Barry GLOBE STAFF Like many, Medvedow has watched with increasing horror as a new federal government takes dead aim at the things she's spent a lifetime advocating for, most often with the ICA as the platform: Diversity. Education. Culture, in easy reach for all. She's less concerned about the museum itself than the ethos it represents. 'We've never really gotten much federal funding,' she said, 'and honestly, the clarity of purpose we've built here together, with the board, with the staff, is my best work.' For her, that purpose is the work. 'I'm really curious about what the world will look like to me without the lens of the ICA,' she said. 'There are a lot of things I feel like I'm good at, and I think it would be worthwhile for me to put them into a more political, social context. I just wish the need wasn't so urgent.' Medvedow is no stranger to the political arena. Her father, Leon, was a legendary progressive politician in New Haven, where she grew up; her mother, Phyllis, was an artist and volunteer organizer for a slate of civic projects, making their daughter a fusion of the two. And Medvedow's political affiliations run deep. Former governor Deval Patrick invited her to chair his 2009 Working Group on the Creative Economy, and he returned the favor: He's a longstanding member of the ICA board. Medvedow is 'a big thinker, a big doer, with a big heart,' Patrick said, praising 'the immense contribution she made to all of our thinking, well beyond museums and other art venues.' Advertisement She declines to be more specific about her post-ICA plans, but true to form, the new task she's starting to articulate for herself is momentous. In the few months since last year's rancorous presidential campaign, the American social order has fractured more deeply than any time in recent memory as the Trump administration moves to dismantle government agencies and to The Institute of Contemporary Art in its last location on Boylston Street, prior to the move to its Seaport building in 2006. Steve Rosenthal Medvedow, of course, is used to big lifts. When she took over at the ICA in 1998, the museum was a tenant The ICA she leaves this month is an architectural landmark — a luminous slab of glass and steel, It perches on the water's edge in the bustling Seaport district which, when the ICA arrived in 2007, was mostly a sea of parking lots. 'We had a frontier mentality, which meant we could do something bold,' she said. 'And to be honest, I still find it a little hard to believe.' Advertisement From the beginning, Medvedow saw artists as powerful messengers for social good, and the ICA as a platform for their voices. Her ideas spurred a revolution in contemporary art in New England that this newspaper called ' Simone Leigh's "Satellite" outside the United States' pavilion during the 59th Biennale of Arts exhibition in Venice in 2022. Leigh's project "Sovereignty" was produced by the ICA. Antonio Calanni/Associated Press But what happens outside the museum has always been as important to Medvedow as what happens within it. Boston After School and Beyond creates programs for BPS students at the museum, and the ICA'S relationship with BPS allows students to earn credits there during the school year. At the Seaport Studio, a youth-run space just down the street, the ICA's educational, community-driven mission comes to life with teen programs from student exhibitions to new media classes. Happen by on an opening night, and you'll see it in full bloom, with young people from all over the city, communing — loudly, ebulliently — over the power of creative expression. 'Jill didn't build a museum,' Corkin said. 'She built an institution for contemporary culture and learning.' Advertisement Medvedow would never pick favorites, but the ICA's constant efforts to reach into the community might be what she's most proud of. 'The focus, the relentless focus, has always been on people who are outside the mainstream of museum-going,' she said. 'When you connect with a work of art, you can literally feel your heart swelling,' she said. 'Having a bigger heart to me seems like a very, very direct way of having a more compassionate world.' The new ICA, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, in 2006. Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston In her office in mid-March, she sat perched on a sofa with a commanding view of Boston Harbor. There was an inevitable sense of a circle closing; that same day, she had returned from New York, where she'd spoken at a memorial service for Ricardo Scofidio, of the firm that had built the new ICA, who became a close friend. 'It's been a hard couple of days,' she said. 'But a good couple of days, too.' Across the water in East Boston, the ICA's Watershed, an annex the museum launched in 2018, is preparing for the summer season with an exhibition by the Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota, focused on the theme of migration. The Watershed expanded the ICA's footprint, surely; but it also reached audiences outside the typical museum-going core. With its diverse roster of artists focused on themes of migration, dispossession, and difference, the Watershed was built at least partly with East Boston's migrant-heavy population in mind, inviting the local community in with educational programs and exhibition space. When the COVID pandemic hit in 2020, Medvedow quickly partnered with the East Boston Community Health Center to transform the warehouse-size Watershed into a food distribution center for those in need. Jill Medvedow at the ICA's newly opened Watershed in East Boston in June 2018. Suzanne Kreiter/Globe staff/file 2018 In the final days of her tenure, there was no sense of a victory lap. Her schedule remained packed with a to-do list devoted to making the institution stronger and better than it was the day before. Last week, Medvedow May 1. She leaves with both confidence and a little anxiety. 'The waters are very, very choppy,' she said. 'Steering any institution through that is really hard. But if there's a tiny ounce of relief, it's that we all built this boat to be strong enough, together.' As the day draws closer, Medvedow is looking forward, she said, to catching her breath. 'I'll be doing a lot of walking; that's where I do my best thinking.' A current stint as a fellow at Harvard Divinity School has helped her put that thinking down on paper. And she won't disappear for long. 'My work has been consistent, forever,' she said. 'Where I've done it has changed, and it's going to change again. But I'm not dying, and I'm not leaving.' Expect to hear from her soon. Murray Whyte can be reached at
