Her Negatives Become a Positive Approach to Healing

Hoping to find that art has healing power, Hedda Nussbaum is using photography as a form of therapy to get over her brutal relationship with Joel Steinberg. Nussbaum, who was herself a victim of beatings during the time she lived with Steinberg, testified that he killed 6-year-old Lisa Steinberg in 1986 during a violent outburst. He was sentenced to up to 25 years in prison for first-degree manslaughter. Nussbaum will be exhibiting a collection of 12 black-and-white photographs--including a white rose and a rabbit--entitled “Signs of Life” that she took during the months she was in rehabilitation at the Four Winds mental hospital. Sag Harbor, N.Y., gallery owner Romany Kramoris calls the exhibit, to open later this month, “a strong statement of contemplation, unity and peace.” The pictures will sell for $125 to $275.

--For now, at least, George W. Bush will turn his attention away from America’s politics and focus instead on its national pastime. The President’s eldest son, who’s been talked up as a likely candidate for governor of Texas in 1990, said Tuesday that he won’t be throwing his hat into the political ring this time around. Bush, at 43 the managing partner of the Texas Rangers, who are battling for the American League West division title, said that “for now, I want to focus my obligations to the Texas Rangers baseball team and more importantly on my responsibilities as a father and as a provider.” The First Son said he knows to “never say never,” but he thinks very little could change his mind about not running in 1990.

--Bill Cosby, who for years has been teaching toddlers about colors and numbers on the Public Broadcasting System, will put his comedic talents to educational use in a benefit concert for a new elementary school in Amarillo, Tex. Corporate raider and oilman T. Boone Pickens Jr. and his wife, Bea, came up with the plan for the October concert when searching for ways to fund a magnet school that would further integration by using computer programs to lure pupils to a predominantly black neighborhood. “The Cos” is “well-known for his generosity, and he said he’d be glad to help,” said Pickens, whose company said it would pay up to half of the school’s costs for the first two years.