Just back from a stint at the American Academy in Rome, a community of dedicated, talented, learned people, where you join others at long tables for meals: you chat about cities visited, books read, projects in process, and before you know it, a flash of connection! Jenny Okun! An artist-photographer whose eyes see shapes and colors that the rest of us only see when she shows them to us, whose delight in patterns amazes and delights us. “I work at Columbia,” I say to her, and she comments, “I have some pictures of a pink library there”; “Hey, that’s the Rare Book & Manuscript Library!,” I exclaim.

Here’s my favorite, which she kindly allows me to copy here: “Columbia Library Pink,” 1985, New York City, New York, USA; J. Okun ©2002.

There’s another one of RBML and many other great images of her work on her website at: http://www.jennyokun.com/index.html
To see the RBML images, click on Photographic Image Index, then click on Architecture, then click on New York, and scroll alphabetically to Columbia. You’ll be glad you did.