We ask simple questions: Why do things look the way they do? How did they get that way? What do they mean? In learning to look beyond the surfaces of cutlery, the patterns in brick work, the carving on furniture, the field patterns of a landscape, or the weave structures of textiles, we find complex meanings. There in the tangible details is the record of human enterprise and art. Understanding such things has broad applications for public humanities and policy.

Objects have answers. We teach people to find the questions to bring to them.