Redemptive places, charitable choice, and welfare reform

The faces of the two girls featured in Danuta Rothschild's image Women's Shelter express both despair and hope. Parr: of a series of works on urban homelessness, the painting depicts them seated on the steps of a shelter For battered women. Such "redemptive places" and the hope they offer to desperate lives are the subject of Daphne Spain's Longer View. Spain recounts the inception of these places in the U.S. early in the last century and describes their latest incarnations in "Charitable Choice" initiatives. Danuta Rothschild emigrated from Poland in 1971 and works daily in her studio in Venice, California. The subject matter of her paintings has included the Holocaust, Native Americans, threats of chemical war in the Middle East, and the natural world. Her work can be viewed on her Web site at < http://www.danutastudio.com > and she can be contacted at < danuta@danutastudio.com >.