People From Chicago

"I would hope that people see me as a shepherd and that people will grow to trust me. Trust is important in our life together, and I want to do what I can to establish trust. As for how I would like people to understand me, I would appreciate people recognizing that my task is to establish, along with the clergy and lay faithful, a vision for our future in southern Illinois. A key responsibility I have is to foster and preserve unity among us as we move into the future."

"In our parishes, what people first need to do is pay attention to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and ponder what it teaches and try to live it. That’s where you start. What does Jesus teach us? Love God with your whole being, and love your neighbor as yourself. He tells us that our neighbor is everybody! So people — Black and White, African-American or European-American — you start with Jesus of Nazareth."

"What the Gita is finally is inseparable from its many contextual environments, ancient and modern, Eastern and Western, scholarly and popular, corporate and personal, secular and sacred - contextual environments that have emerged in an on-going historical process and will continue to emerge as that historical process unfolds."

"At a really early age, I started to learn by watching that aptitude and access are two different things. My mom wasn’t dumb—she was smart, but she didn’t have access to things for most of her life. With a little bit of access to education, she changed her circumstances."

"That’s what my journey taught me, that I could do really meaningful things in a positive way—so that the ‘how’ it was done was maybe even more important than the ‘what’."

"I hope that my being a member of the College of Cardinals can increase the affection and the devotion of the people of the Archdiocese of Washington for Pope Francis and his Petrine Ministry."

"You do not know what the next chapter of your life will bring. No matter how far down you may feel today every valley is surrounded by mountains whose peaks hold new and wonderful experiences. Throughout the toughest times in my life, I have held onto this one Scripture verse, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Philippians 4:13."

"Getting ahead in life is not easy. It's just the opposite. I have learned that you have to do a lot of things that are unpleasant in the vague hope that life will be better in the future. You put in your time, pay your dues, explore alternatives, and try to make wise decisions. Anyone who's been in the Army knows how hellish it can be. That's the point. That's the whole idea of basic training- you get up early, you get yelled at all day, you are challenged physically and psychologically, you wash dishes and clean latrines, and go to bed exhausted before resuming the grind at dawn the next morning. You do it because you have to, and through the process you acquire mettle- that's a word I like. the work improves your mental toughness and your character- and people with mettle tend to achieve your goals. It has worked for me."

"Getting ahead usually involves being bold and never accepting that you've reached your personal potential. In my career as an advocate for veterans, I accepted new responsibilities when they were offered, even though I wasn't certain I could handle them. When I was a veterans assistance counselor and assigned to Icarus II, a drug treatment unit at the VA hospital, I realized I needed more education. I was not a good student in my youth, but as an adult, I recognized that I needed to learn more, took college classes part-time, and finally earned my degree. That was a proud moment."

""Others, not self" has become my core value- selflessness rather than selfishness- and that has made me a happier person. I don't always live by my own motto now; I still have my "I" centered moments. But I try hard to avoid them and return to the idea of being of service to others, to my family, my friends, and fellow veterans. When I fail, I try again. I am happiest when serving others and not myself."

"Writing this autobiography has been one of the toughest things I've done. It brought back a lot of memories. I had to look at these memories from two perspectives: that of a child and that of an adult. Through my child's eyes many challenges I faced growing up seemed insurmountable. But from an adult perspective they didn't seem so great. It's like when as an adult I went back to visit Lake Eliza. I remembered the lake being really big, but when I viewed it as an adult it was really small. The lake had not changed; it was simply a matter of perspective. That's the way my problems were growing up. When I was going through them they seemed enormous but now, looking back through more experienced eyes, the problems of my youth seem very small."

"Writing this book I wanted to visit the child of my youth, to tell him that after all his struggles he was going to have an amazing life; that this chapter of his life would end when he graduated high school and went into the Army; that all the hardships, all he things the bullies put him through would make him tougher and more resilient; that in his later years he would have wonderful friends who would be closer than family."

"The people in Cuba need our help and we will continue to support them in whatever way we can as the Catholic Church has always believed that engagement, rather than isolation, is the best way to improve human rights and move forward in our relations with the island nation."

"We see that happening today with many of the immigrants that come and are being rejected. Even though they are not criminals, they are being treated as criminals."

"What a rare, rare, sweet yet fierce man, lifted as he climbed, a gift to generations, a dear soul, Richard Hunt."

"The sheer hard work and intelligence of his artistic practice will resonate as one of the archetypal legacies of American sculpture."

"Richard Hunt is a kind of superhero of sculpture, one of the hardest working artists of all time, clearly a master metal worker still crushing it in his 80s."

"He was an inspiration to me, he was a mentor, and in my eyes he was a warrior who smashed the barriers that kept artists of color from moving toward their goals."

"He is simply a superhero among American artist. Sculpt-activists. There I just spontaneously invented a new word trying to explain this man's meaning to me, mic drop."

"I have such profound respect for you and your insistence on working with such dedication and perseverance."

"Richard is the real deal a true independent spirit deeply rooted in his home turf, yet, like a kind of vulcan at his forge, sending forth metal incarnations of human striving and transcendence sending them like the mighty abstract sparks far and wide."

"One of the most innovative artists of the twentieth century."

"I first saw a story about Richard in one of those picture magazines when I was a younger teenager. It was the first time I'd ever seen a Black artist featured in any of those publications and I never forgot it. He's been someone I've looked up to ever since."

"For me to be able to work in Richard's studio and see the master work was such a special moment that helped set a foundation for my life and success."

"Richard Hunt is one of the most important artists of our time."

"Richard Hunt is one of the most admired sculptors of his generation."

"One of the most illustrious graduates of the School of the Art Institute, Richard Hunt is a Chicago Legend and one of the most important sculptors of our time"

"His sculpture has been hailed as the work of a master."

"Richard Hunt is a national treasure. Richard is someone who cares so much for his fellow man that his life’s work of sculpture is about helping human beings to appreciate each other."

"Richard Hunt's status as the foremost African-American abstract sculptor and artist of public sculpture has remained unchallenged."

"I've been a huge admirer of your work for a long time, and Michelle has as well."

"If we count [Richard Hunt] among the Americans who simultaneously motivated a critique of the machine age and uncovered nuance within it by way of sculpture (Alexander Calder, Isamu Noguchi, Beverly Pepper, and either Smith, David or Tony), or those for whom the means of manufacture were experimental, often nostalgic and fetishized in equal parts (Anthony Caro, John Chamberlain, Mark di Suvero, Melvin Edwards, Hesse, and Judd), he stands out."

"The artist’s approach to sculpture, and to metal as a material, is an ongoing expression and articulation of a life lived in and as sculpture."

"Hunt is one of the most gifted and assured artists working in the direct-metal, open-form medium—and I mean not only in his own country and generation, but anywhere in the world."

"Our most prominent Black sculptor. His metal pieces are exquisitely torqued and fissured, organic forms that meld industrial materials with high concepts . . . now in his late 80s, he remains a vibrant presence."

"The history of Black people in the United States of America, no one needs to be reminded, has been constantly marked by rejection and rupture. Thus, in his art, from the outset, Hunt has focused on alternative possibilities, such as redemption and freeing ourselves from the manacles of history. It is time that we honor his vision."

"Hunt’s work represents an almost mythic continuum that assembles themes of ancestry, modernity, nation, and memory: a man, his legacy, and myth having very real places in the world as one."

"We have a young man here, Richard Hunt, who I think is a great sculptor. This man is an artist. It has nothing to do with race; it is that real spark, unfathomable, and unidentifiable, that is deeply felt. The power of his sculpture is unassailable."

"Richard Hunt’s art is American treasure to be discovered, rediscovered, reflected upon, and protected."

"I am a Chicago artist because I am from this city; I’m a Black artist because I happen to be Black. These descriptions are sometimes useful to other people. But I’m also many other things—a man, a human being, an artist. Artists have a unique opportunity to make a difference . . . to look and work toward the future. Most people, by the nature of their work, have to think about what’s happening now, to serve as kind of custodians of our culture; but artists have the opportunity and responsibility to be forward-looking. We have the job of creating new ideas and visions for the future, and I’m pleased to be a part of that."

"Sculpture is not a self-declaration but a voice of and for my people—over all, a rich fabric; under all, the dynamism of the African American people."

"I am interested more than anything else in being a free person. To me, that means that I can make what I want to make, regardless of what anyone else thinks I should make. My art is about art—embracing a vision of the future that is unlike past futures."

"I am the thinking person’s sculptor, joining metal manipulation to meaningful expression."

"Imagining a world without racial hierarchy, I work as if race did not exist. Look the world over, learn, enjoy, luxuriate, dream large, expansive dreams of a glorious future for ourselves and all mankind. Then, we turn our attention to what is humanly possible."

"Sculpture is all about hard work and delayed gratification, and mysterious, harmonious, pleasantly jarring, revelatory spatial structures—having good times and bad times at the same time."

"A pivotal figure in 20th century sculpture."

"Sometimes it is not about making art. Sometimes it is about making statements about culture and history or history and culture with or through art."

"The goal is to wander, wander through the unknown in search of the unknown, all the while leaving your mark. Art can do it all: a life of doing things, a life of making things."

"My sculpture begins and ends with what can be done with metal. Between the beginning and end are other considerations. The drama of the process of each weld involves a change of state from solid to liquid and back to solid. Repetitions of this process bring about construction, a new constellation of the real and the imagined, ruminations in metal. The material basis of my sculpture is metallic opportunities. Bringing pressure to the right points, I draw the aesthetic out of the industrial process. To me, metal is alive. The forms tell their own story—how they resisted the torch and hammer. From the mill through the studio to the gallery, park, or plaza, the sculptor’s challenge is to bend the metal to his wishes, hammer it into his vision."

"It is often felt that the lyric or romantic sensibility cannot express itself in iron. The intent of a good deal of my work is to demonstrate that it is a possibility no more foreign to iron than to marble."