I Wish I Knew My Neighbor Better

I WISH I KNEW MY NEIGHBOR BETTER
The late Ivory L. Brown, the subject of I Wish I Knew My Neighbor Better, was an African American resident in the artist’s neighborhood. Rosen discovered his name by chance in her telephone directory (a relic of the past), but she didn’t know him. If she did, she might know what his middle initial “L” stood for. Instead, she had to speculate, painting his name twice in its remarkable self-designated colors, ivory and brown, and imagining that in the context of his multicolored first and last names, his middle initial L might have stood for lime green or lavender/lilac.