Chiaroscuro
I can’t remember my professor’s name from Art History 101 in community college. You’d think I would recall. After all, I only finished a handful of semesters, leaving sans degree to tend to my boys: the one I had and the one on the way. I do still have the textbook. It has survived almost 40 years of moving. That book calls the inside of a box home more than a bookcase shelf. An unattractive, massive thing, it’s a function over form philosophy, for sure. It has weighted down all sorts of papers, from pastdue notices to baby shower invitations. It has pressed innumerable roses, taking them from robust reds to paper-thin browns. Even back in its heyday, it was beloved to me. Professor Nice Lady wielded that book like a historical light saber. Down with history means down with art, she would surmise. The part that hit me the hardest was the part where both Prof and book taught me about what lurks in the shadows. She gave it a name. Chiaroscuro.
