I have loved the sight of the Kentile Floors sign against the sky—gone now, part of a vanishing Brooklyn I wanted to honor. This work came together as I was studying Photoshop.
Later, when it was in an exhibition after Hurricane Sandy, I understood better why I put these elements together. As I look now, I see, amid the devastation, signs of hope. Dawn is breaking and a bird is flying in, like the dove returning to Noah’s ark.
I’m grateful to have learned from Aesthetic Realism that art is an honest way of liking the world, of seeing meaning and beauty in it—including where it is difficult to do so.
—Mary Fagan