Sometimes in life, a piece of artwork takes you by surprise and before you know it, you can’t live without it. Such is the case for Mark, a private contemporary art collector in Chicago, who is also a friend of The Conservation Center. Mark began collecting art in the early 1980’s while living in New York City. He recently brought his very first acquisition from “way back when” to The Center to be reframed—and the piece Mark brought us has such a heartfelt story behind it we couldn’t resist sharing.