©billhayward

Our language identifies who we are.  For the Crow our life doesn’t revolve around ownership of things…it is the ownership of our words.

Humanity is not something man simply has. He must fight for it anew in every generation, and he may lose his fight.  Where…the uniqueness of his individual person? – Paul Tillich, “A Prefatory Note By Paul Tillich”, New Images of Man

Unbound by tradition, uninhibited by fear, each American is free to invent “an original relation to the universe,” or so said Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1836.  Since then, a uniquely American idea of self-creation has been reduced to its opposite, as we learn to define ourselves through consumerist choice in everything from art to politics.

The work of memory is to recall what has been lost.

Carter Ratcliff – art critic, author, poet

©billhayward

At the beach/ I’d be in my waders/ the waves would be crashing/ Senator Webster would be fishing/ and I would be asking him questions about politics.

©billhayward

-motor vehicle operator-

boston national historical park

Having served in Vietnam, John is continually reminded of “what it must have been like to be at the battle that June day in 1775.” To find oneself directly connected to that string that stretches throughout history, that profundo note that reverberates forever in all who have been in battle. “Youʼre standing around and then all of a sudden itʼs, ʻOK, here we goʼ”.

©billhayward

-daughter of NYPD detective ann marie moloney-
world trade center site
new york, new york

Freedom was on the school bus on her way to school when she heard word of the World Trade Center attacks and collapse.  Knowing that her mother would be among  the first officers to go down to the site, her first reaction was as written. She had been told that her mother was probably dead.

What would you do?

©billhayward

given enough paint, paper and permission, there’s no telling where we might end up