My mother would have called it sacrilegious to say that to come to a museum is a kind of prayer. But I want to tell her: Do you see that what I am doing is a kind of prayer? Adoration, contrition, thanksgiving, supplication. I am writing about you to witness to the mystery of an impossible love. I am sorry for the exposure that this entails. I am full of gratitude for what you gave me. I am, as artists are, a suppliant – but to whom? Saying to someone, faceless, in the air: Help me set down what I see.
--Mary Gordon, Circling My Mother
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