The Art of the Brick

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write and

wronG

the writer

Seeking out the truth is something of a family pastime.

My grandfather on my mother’s side, Jack Swenson,

was a legendary midwestern journalist who made the

switch from radio to television without a hitch. In the

’50s and ’60s, millions of people relied on him to tell

them the way things were. My mother, too, worked

as a journalist—for the West Lane News, a weekly

newspaper in Veneta. Tuesdays were always the nights

we wouldn’t see her, because they went to print that

night. She didn’t get home until two or three in the

morning, and I was long since asleep. Tuesday was the

night the paper went to bed.

Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to

make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according

to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense

obsessions mercilessly. —Franz Kafka

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Since my grandfather was a journalist and my mom

was a journalist, it seemed like a good thing for me

to do too. In high school, I was editor of the school

paper. I had a great journalism teacher, Anne Johnson,

who’d always encourage me and stay behind to help

me put together the paper. We covered all the sorts

of things that thousands of small-town school papers

do: sports, achievements, staff changes. But in my

mind I was like my grandfather or my mom, a warrior

for truth in a world of fuzzy gray deceit.

Once, and I can’t remember what the story was, I

had to have a meeting with the vice principal, who

wanted me to wait for his approval before running

a story. My response was something like “This is

ridiculous! No one can tell me what to write! I’m

taking this to the Supreme Court.” Little did I know

that the Supreme Court had already ruled that punk

teenage editors of high school newspapers could be

restrained by vice principals!

I thought I would go into television, like my

grandfather. When I first went to NYU, it was to

studyjournalism, and I packed my bags with all

the passion for the truth that I could muster. And

though Ileft behind that journalistic life many years

ago, I now look to my artwork as my contribution to

finding the truth, distinguishing right from wrong,

andfollowing in the family footsteps.

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