In 1992 over 100 people met at the Old South Meeting House to discuss the under-representation of women among Boston’s public statues. A task force that became a site committee for a Women’s Memorial chose three inspiring women—Abigail Adams, Lucy Stone and Phillis Wheatley—and secured the last empty memorial site on the Commonwealth Avenue Mall. The theme uniting the three women was that all had an impact on the idea of justice in our society through their writing, and this theme would be linked to educational programs. This part of the process, with many fervent discussions, took six years. Their next step was to select an artist, and to do that they had to formulate what they wanted that artist to achieve. Public art originates with a call for help with a group’s expression. The group may issue an overt challenge to an artist to resolve contradictions or heal civic wounds, but the unspoken challenge is to the artist to create a work that has the power of what might be called “private” art, the kind the artist is driven to create only by the private urgencies of her or his own psyche. Every group hopes to commission a great work, for only art that arouses a passionate response is likely to bring much nourishment to the community it is intended to serve. We tend to believe that powerful art emanates from the aroused passions of the artist, and the public process must meet the both public’s needs and the artist’s.