Sonny Rollins: During the concert, I’d been trying to work on some musical passages, and after it was over, when everybody was leaving, I was in my dressing room trying to work out this little passage.
Judy Chicago: There were about 20 students, and we turned the house into the first major feminist art installation.
Rollins: What am I supposed to be doing? I was just looking for a place to practice.
Chicago: For that, you need a huge apparatus of support.
Rollins: Oh God, always. I believe that.
***
Chicago: Which leads me to a question to perfectly end this conversation: You once asked me what I would do if all monetary and geographic limits were lifted.
Rollins: If I’d do my part, the universe would do its part.
Chicago: The first step is freeing oneself from the prison of that gaze.
Rollins: Period. But I eventually came out of my depression when I realized that rather than being depressed I should be grateful.
Chicago: I mean, what kind of courage did it take to stand up to that?
***
Rollins: But hey, that’s what life is: You mess up, and you try to become aware.
Chicago: I only found that out later.
Rollins: See? [Laughs] Right.
Chicago: How are you?
Rollins: That’s complicated.