Two of my friends from high school were Forrest and Scott.
After high school, Scott went on to become an artist. In 1998, he had an exhibit titled What is the proper way to display the U.S. flag?; this provoked controversy and death threats at the time because visitors were invited to leave their thoughts on the exhibit in a book; to reach the book, they had to walk across a flag lying on the floor.
In 2003, another artist, Ben Sakoguchi, painted a series of 12 works collectively titled Star Spangled Banner, one of these pieces depicted the notorious book and floor-flag.
This past weekend, Scott and I, from our respective homes in New York and Austin, visited Forrest on the occasion of his 60th birthday; Scott and I went to the Perez Art Museum, which had “Star Spangled Banner” on display. I had the opportunity to take a picture of Scott in front of the painting that quoted his earlier work. Scott was not nearly as surprised by this as I was.
