Julie Peppito, a Brooklyn artist whose work is very much driven by her concern for the environment, lead a collage workshop to toddlers and pre-teens, making a collage with broken toys, images and various craft materials. It was President’s Day, 2020. Fantastic works were created by dozens of kids. I photographed several of them. One gave me pause, the one with the gas mask. I thought “Oops, did we supply that image in the trove of materials we presented?” I moved on and forgot about it.
With the Coronavirus lockdown I prepped my studio for working from home, clearing off my table, sorting files, setting up office. Organizing my computer’s desktop was next. I created a folder for this and a sub-folder for that, I deleted ancient files to free up gigabytes of space, and I hooked up the external drive I brought home. As I brought order to current projects, I categorized recent photographs, like those I took of that workshop and the works her pupils composed. The gas mask! There it was again, yes, I recalled my pause. However, not until now did I spot the doorknob in the piece. Was this kid on to something? What did he know? The coronavirus had crossed our borders under the radar of presidential denials. Had the kid read between the lines? Did he attend the workshop with Purell in his pocket? How would he have answered, if he’d been asked “What would you want to share with the world?”