--How did you end up choosing Smith [Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts]?$$I ended up at Smith because of Verne Oliver. When it came time to think about colleges, as head of school, we had a guidance counsellor, but as head of school, she also worked with the senior class, right, to ensure that every student was looking at the best range of possibilities for them. And I remember I did not necessarily have a distinct interest in women's colleges per se; I knew I wanted to go to a small school and it felt like the counsellor gave me the whole realm of some of the best small liberal arts schools on the East Coast, and so my sense of myself was, well, great; I'll apply to all of these schools. But I imagined that I would end up in a coed school, small coed liberal arts school. I knew I already wanted to major in art history, I knew I wanted to work in a museum, but I also saw college as something else besides just getting on my career track. I was excited about the possibility of leaving home and of meeting new friends, and so I just thought that college experience would be like the experience that I'd seen on TV. And Verne, in a way, Verne was very direct and stern about things. She said to me, "You are going to apply to several women's colleges." And I said, "Why?" And she says, "Because that's how the world is, and I want you to go to a women's," (background noise) sorry. I'll start that over. I, Verne was very adamant that I look at women's colleges and, you know, Verne Oliver was an educator who believed also in education; like she believed that education is what made us who we are, and believed deeply in college as not just a conveyor belt to career, but to, again, this ability to deeply dive into an academic study that one could have with them, right, their whole life, no matter what they did. And so Verne was the one who said, "You are gonna apply to women's colleges." And I remember Verne giving me the most sophisticated analysis of gender and race politics in America as she saw it, and end of that lecture ended up that she felt a woman's college would give me things that I would not get anywhere else, that she felt would be critical to my ability to actualize a life full of possibility and opportunity. And I believed her in a way, and so applied; in the end decided not to go to Smith, and sent a deposit to a coed liberal arts school that I won't name, that I went to visit, and when I was visiting this coed liberal arts, very good school that had a, a student body all proud to go there, I met a young man at that school who, so proud of his school and so, did, believed deeply, right, in its pull, said to me, "Oh, my girlfriend goes to Smith; you should meet her." And so in the weekend, it was that discovery weekend that, where after you decide where you're going you go up there, I met this young woman, and she was amazing. I mean I had never met a woman my age who had as much determination, as much focus, as much poise, I mean the first thing when I saw her, I thought, my mother [Thelma Eastmond Golden] would love her. While everyone else was at this college party, kind of, you know, in whatever they were in, she commanded space in the room, and she very calmly kind of said to me, "You know, it's great you're here; this is a great school, but did you apply to Smith?" And I said, "Yes, and I got in." I said, "But you know, I just don't know, a single sex school; I, you know, maybe I should go to a coed school." And she says, "I think you're wrong." And she gave me her phone number; she said, "Call me, let's talk," you know, "when you get home." Well, by the time I get home, and this is how the world is, it turned out her father was a very well known elected official in New York State who, when she said, "You know, I met this young woman, this is her name." He said, "Oh, that must be," again, "Artie Golden's [Arthur Golden, Sr.] daughter." And he called my dad, and she and I had spoken, and at that point my parents called Smith and said, "Listen," you know, "she made this decision, she'd like to perhaps change her decision." It was still within the timing, so I wasn't out of time, but it was more that it felt like we were done. And Smith, of course, said, "Of course you can come." And the only thing that happened is we lost the deposit for the first school. And years later, that school invited me to do a lecture and they paid me a very generous honorarium, and I was so proud of that and I told my father, and about a week later he said, "Okay, you know whose money that is." He goes, "That's my deposit with interest," you know, twenty years later (laughter). But, I then knew, I knew Smith was right. I knew it was right; I knew when I visited, but I just had a little bit of anxiety about what I imagined I wanted. It's the thing I tell now young women who are looking at Smith, that that anxiety, in the course of one's life, is so small compared to all you gain in these four years in an environment that is truly invested in you. And what it means to be in an environment with all these young women, your peers, who have an equal sense of themself was inspiring every single day. That's how it felt to be at Smith, it was inspiring every day. So that's how I got to Smith. Verne was thrilled. I mean this was sort of her choice, and I'd applied to several other women's colleges. My parents were thrilled because it was a decision they thought I was happy with, and I went off to Smith and spent four amazing years there.$What do you think about your, the concept in the days, 'cause I think really, a lot of us are fearful of the times, well, I don't know, amazed and sort of fearful of what hap- you know, what, you know, between, I'm talking about, I don't even wanna talk about him, but between Trump [President Donald John Trump] and, you know, what is sort of--$$Yeah.$$--fermenting in society right now, and, and so I was wondering what your thoughts are, or do you see beyond that.$$Well, I have always felt that I see the world through art; I see the world through art in amazing moments in the world, but I also see the world through art in hard, complicated moments. So I, right now, am deeply engaged in the work that's being made, for example, photographically, by young photographers and photojournalists who are on the front lines of the protests going on all over this country, right, in the face of all the violence that's happening, the racial violence and the violence that's happening because of the racial violence. I understand what I understand about some of that through their eyes, and through the way in which they are documenting and then capturing it, some of them not even with the idea that it's art with a big A, but it is art to me, and I'm intrigued. I know that's what will be the record of what people who will know about this moment, this complicated, awful moment, will know about it a hundred years from now; it's gonna come, right, in that work. And as a curator, I actually have the added responsibility, in some cases, of collecting that work to make sure that somebody has the opportunity to see it. So, right now, I look at what's going on by looking at the ways in which artists are responding. It always isn't direct, however. Do you know what I, like it isn't always direct; there aren't always direct manifestations in the very moment by artists; that, that's not what I mean to say, what I mean to say, however, is that art reacts to the world it's in; art reacts to the world it's in, so being someone in the world of art means that I have a way to understand some of the complexity of what's happening in the world.
