Hub and spoke.

Audio Collective.

We all have a mentor, even if we don't necessarily identify them that way at the time.

There's someone who once extended a hand and took you through a door

that suddenly materialized, suddenly unlocked. Mine was Judith Wexler. At the time, I was a 22-year-old

graduate student, whatever shade comes before green, in the art history department

at Tufts University. I was coming off of a year in Europe, moving home to Boston, but a

completely different part of it, so not home at all. I was starting over. I was lonely. I was

completely at sea. Grad school felt like the next step for somebody who couldn't think of anything better to do.

I had no idea how completely it would ring me dry and then replenish me with something new.

And this was largely because of Judith.

She was warm and welcoming, but she was of Judith. She was warm and welcoming.

But she was also demanding, as well she should have been.

Art has a reputation for being whatever you decide it is.

But that's not art history, especially not in Judith's courses.

You couldn't bullshit her with a flowery

interpretation that wasn't rooted in rigor. You had to show your work. Judith is an art historian,

filmmaker, writer, researcher, francophile, and a leading expert on Paul Cézanne and Honoré

Domier. She's the daughter of a major religious

philosopher. Her resume reads like a who's who of 20th century art historians, Meyer Shapiro,

Linda Nocklin, Leo Steinberg, Gersham Sholem. And her films tell the story of 20th century Europe,

image by image.

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