In 1978 my parents brought the family to Rome. My father, being an excommunicated Catholic Priest campaigning for re-instatement for married priests worldwide, had a reason for the journey; to meet with the then current Pope. As our plane touched down at Da Vinci airport, the Pope died. The trip was not a total loss, however. We took in the sights, and even stayed at the Cavaliere Hilton once seen in a James Bond movie. On a side trip to Florence standing in front of Michelangelo’s David, I noticed something that would have a dramatic influence on my future artistic endeavors. Behind the large right hand of sculpture (the one holding the rock) a small piece of gray tape was stuck to the surface. On the piece of tape was a word written in black ink; it read, “ SCOPRA.” I asked my father what “scopra” meant and he told me with a grin, “to uncover or clean.” I laughed and told my father that they should cover the entire sculpture with tape because the whole piece of marble was covered with various degrees of dust and soot. At the age of eight I had envisioned a common repair tactic that often never really solves an inherent problem. That is why it is called a cover-up.
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