See the entire BEGINNINGS exhibition here.

Robert Hightower

The weight of waiting

There's a seat here that used to know your weight.
I don't forget shapes like that, even after they stop coming back.

For a while I just held the space where you were.
Didn't move, didn't ask for anything,
just kept the shape of you a little longer than I should have.

Then the flowers came in anyway.
Nobody asked them to.
They just grew right up against me
like they didn't know grief was supposed to keep its distance.

I used to think if I stayed still enough, you'd find your way back to me.
Now I think staying still was never the same as waiting.

Somebody new will sit here eventually.
They won't know what I used to hold,
they'll just feel the sun and the color coming up around them,
and that'll be enough.

I'm learning that new beginnings don't erase what came before.
They just grow right up next to it, uninvited, persistent, alive.

I'm not empty.
I'm becoming something that can hold two things at once.

Bringing together ART . EDUCATION . SOCIAL JUSTICE

Bader + Simon exhibits work by underrepresented artists focusing on the most urgent issues of our time - race, equity, justice, belonging - and we
return 100% of every sale directly to the artists.

We put emerging artists in the same room as some of the most recognized names in contemporary art. That proximity is intentional — and a core part of our mission. We aim to tell important stories that are often overlooked by providing artists with a platform to share their work while creating opportunities for collaboration, connection, and the promotion of underrepresented voices and perspectives through art, not just in Cincinnati but around the country.