Works Progress. Is that short for work-in-progress? Nope. It’s actually an idea that harkens back to Mr. Fitz’s 8th grade history class. History was not one of Mara Lubell’s stronger subjects. Geometry, Art...solid. History, not so much. In fact, it was only with Mr. Fitz’s generous offer of extra credit in exchange for drawings of WWII military planes for class presentation materials that Mara was able to squeeze by. It was probably just a crafty teacher’s trick to get her involved in the subject matter but hey, it worked, and a little nugget of info slipped in and stuck for approximately 20 years. It was FDR’s Works Progress Administration or rather the small portion of it that was dedicated to hiring artists, musicians, actors, and many others to bring some beauty back to the country. The idea of art being fundamentally necessary to life and its progress is what Works Progress was founded on and, politics aside, doesn’t it just sound like a really nice idea?