“Above my desk, some talismans: ‘The Floor Scrapers’ by Gustave Caillebotte. I saw it when I was fourteen at the Musee D’Dorsay. The play of light on the floor got my attention, then it kept opening: What are the two on the right saying? Whose apartment is it, and will the people who live there feel the presence of this work when it’s done? Regardless, here are occupied bodies on a given day. Here is sweat and companionship, craftsmanship, dedication, destruction, rehabilitation. Attention to detail. Getting the job done. Next, an old photograph of anonymous huddled masses, disembarking from steerage in New York City in the early-twentieth century. Ancestors are like celebrities: They don’t know me, can only imagine me, but I know them, or want to think I do. My existence is in conversation with theirs. Then, a drawing from Orli Auslander’s ‘I Feel Bad’ series: ‘I Insist It’s Not PMS,’ which reminds me to laugh at myself, because if you can laugh at yourself, life and work will be joyful. Finally, a picture of my husband holding our son. Stare at these things for a while, or fail to see them because they’re always there. Some days, recognition and renewal. Some days, blindness. Regardless, onward: I have work to do. Lucky me.”
—Elisa Albert, author of After Birth (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015)
Photo credit: Phillip Angert