I think the 1970s will always be the decade for me. Obviously I grew up in that era but the beauty standard was touchable kissable.

Because most of my career in the classroom has been at art schools (beginning at Bennington in the 1970s) I am hyper-aware of the often grotesque disconnect between commentary on the arts and the actual practice or production of the arts.

Does art have a future? Performance genres like opera theater music and dance are thriving all over the world but the visual arts have been in slow decline for nearly 40 years. No major figure of profound influence has emerged in painting or sculpture since the waning of Pop Art and the birth of Minimalism in the early 1970s.

In the 1970s and 1980s there was so little decent fiction for young people but we're now in a golden age that shows no sign of fading. Philip Pullman J. K. Rowling Lemony Snicket are only three of the best known among a good number of equals.