art-felt impact

In March of last year I posted about the brutal and senseless beating death of a local arts hero, Robert Busby, by his handyman, who then took his own life. Robert owned and operated the Creole Gallery where artists, musicians like my son Peter, and poetry readers like me, perform. Beyond accessibility to the arts Robert provided, he also touched people personally with kindness and generosity. Peter will never forget the warm welcome with wine his band received from Robert in his loft apartment above the gallery before their show.

Just the other day, a year and a half after Robert's murder, Henrique Bertulani found the strength to leave a comment on that post about his friend Robert.


Henrique was an Anthropology student at MSU who participated in shows and galleries that Robert promoted. He was especially touched by Robert's brutal death because his own grandfather, a taxi driver, was killed in a similar violent manner in Cuiabá, Brazil, just when Henrique and his family moved from there to Michigan. "The eerie resemblance of their deaths and appearance, broke my heart in such a way that like his family I feel the loss as one of my own."

I went over to MSU's National Superconducting Cyclotron Labratory (we just call it the Cyclotron) to take this photo of Henrique's mural, below, painted when he was an art student here. There is a lot of security in the Cyclotron because of its work with nuclear isotopes, and my camera and I had to be escorted to the atrium where Henrique's mural is. When I told my escort I had heard from the artist, she was very interested. So I asked her, "Oh, do you know Henrique?" "Well, his father worked here," she said. His father is Carlos A. Bertulani, Nuclear Astrophysicist.



I am struck how we leave our mark on the world. When someone takes another person's life, obviously the impact is astonishing, and not just to the person killed. But consider the impact of a fresh and open heart, such as Robert's. And consider the lasting impact of art that fills an atrium on my campus with color and light, painted by Henrique Bertulani who resides far away on another continent, in Rio de Janeiro.