For some reason this time of year brings to mind a number of individuals some I’d like to call peers, several friends, and a very few mentors and even fewer muses. Among them is photographer/cinematographer/composer/poet/et al, Gordon Parks. My memory is having been introduced to him by Daniel Dawson (but it could have been MacArthur Fellow, sculptor and DWC grad Reggie Bradford, who gave me my first exhibition on the East Coast at Choate Rosemary Hall, or … come on was the ’80s), and over the course of about 2 decades I’d come to think of him as my grandfather. He was too cool with his cigarette holder and silk dressing gown. I was blessed to be able to call him up at a semi-reasonable (NY) hour and whine about the latest event in my life or visit if schedules permitted. In the ‘90s I was fortunate to orchestrate an exhibition of Gordon’s work sponsored by the Dallas ASMP at the Dallas Museum of Art and introduce him. One of the highlights in my life was sitting with him in his bedroom projecting transparencies and talking about the sequencing of images for ‘Arias in Silence’. When he graciously positioned himself for his i’Trait i placed him, arms crossed sans cigarette, under the chandelier in his living room, for me it was the $ shot.