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Tucson Sector Deaths 2000–2001 Quilt, from the Migrant Quilt Projectdesigned and created by Betty Kersting

Jody Ipsen hikes remote Arizona migrant trails with members of Los Desconocidos (the “unknowns”), cleaning up campsites and recycling cans and water bottles left behind by migrants. She sends discarded items of clothing to members of the Migrant Quilt Project, who use the fabric to create works in honor of those who’ve perished in the borderlands. The quilters research names to find out more about each person, then sew the names on the quilts. Betty Kersting talks about the Tucson Sector Deaths 2000–2001 quilt.

Sacrifice of Isaac, by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610)

The Sacrifice of Isaac was commissioned for Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, who would later become Pope Urban VIII (1623–44). Caravaggio executed the painting between May 1603 and January 1604. It depicts the moment Abraham, in obedience to God’s command, is poised to sacrifice his son Isaac (Gen. 22). Caravaggio’s version has a physicality that heightens the dramatic effect. With one hand an angel stays Abraham’s drawn knife and with the other points to the ram, a divine provision to take Isaac’s place.