I first encountered Catherine Ricketts C’09 when she was hosting a panel at Kelly Writers House over Alumni Weekend in May called The Parent Artist—a more inclusive variation on the title of her recent book, The Mother Artist. As far as this writer and father of two (now grown) daughters was concerned, it was a great discussion, with a lot of give and take, honest comments, and humor from the panelists, spurred on by Ricketts’ thoughtful, on-point questions. It also featured well above the usual number of children in attendance, which made sense given the subject.
That panel comes up in “The Art of Mothering,” Molly Petrilla C’06’s cover story in this issue, as does a discussion of the similar challenges faced by every artist who also cares for children, parents, or others. But the bulk of the article focuses on Ricketts’ quest to find specifically mothers who could serve as artistic role models—launched by a mostly fruitless search through the galleries of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where she was working soon after the birth of her first child, and ultimately leading to the 30 artists and mothers whose stories she interweaves with her own in the book. “I was really struck by how many different ways there are to be a mother,” Ricketts told Molly, “and how many different ways there are to be an artist.”
One artist featured in the book (also on the Writers House panel) was Aimee Koran GFA’17. Molly interviewed Koran—whose art takes motherhood as its subject and is featured on the cover—and spoke as well with Philadelphia-based tap dancer and mother of three Pamela Hetherington C’01 for the story. She also traces Ricketts’ time as a student and her development as a writer at the University, in particular through classes with the music critic and distinguished lecturer at Penn Anthony DeCurtis.
Some 70 years ago, when it became part of the newly formed Ivy League, Penn said a complicated goodbye to its history as a big-time football power. That experience was still fresh in the memories of the remaining “Mungermen” (so called for their allegiance to beloved coach of the era George Munger Ed’33) interviewed by Dan Rottenberg C’64 for his new book The Price We Paid: An Oral History of Penn’s Struggle to Join the Ivy League, 1950–55, excerpted in this issue.
Rottenberg—himself a journalistic role model of persistence and productivity—was profiled by associate editor Dave Zeitlin C’03 a while back in these pages [“Professional Contrarian,” Sep|Oct 2022]. Both a DP sportswriter and a member of the football team as a student, he’s also the author of Fight on Pennsylvania: A Century of Red and Blue Football, which covers the period from 1876 to 1985. The new book offers a vivid window on how the players perceived Penn football’s rocky transition to its modern era both at the time and in retrospect, and represents what may be the “last word” on the subject, since several of the men interviewed have since died.
Coincidentally, Rottenberg was once sued (unsuccessfully) by former Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo, who was also the subject of a sculpture created by Zenos Frudakis FA’82 GFA’83—profiled in “Sculpting a Life Story,” with text by JoAnn Greco and photography by Michael Branscom. While that work fell victim to controversy (about Rizzo, not Frudakis), his overall oeuvre—which ranges from historical figures like Benjamin Franklin and Frederick Douglass to Muhammad Ali, golfer Payne Stewart, and singer Don McLean—is more generally beloved. At this point in his 30-plus years as a sculptor, “I can be picky about what I take on,” Frudakis says. “A lot of these people are personal heroes.”
—John Prendergast C’80
Editor
