Reading Elin

"Late Night" host and Westchester resident David Letterman — who likes to make not-so-subtle fun of women, among other subjects— said the other night that Elin Woods was not wearing a wedding ring in the paparazzi gas-station snap of her was because she's waiting for a much bigger rock.

She may indeed be expecting a "house on a finger," as some cynically refer to the consolation baubles cheating husbands give their wives. But if you have spent any time in the art world, then you that "reading" the photograph yields a very different interpretation.

Elin Woods is, after all, a former model, and all models understand the power of an image. The photograph in which Woods appears to be smiling for the intrusive shutterbug as she pumps gas, sans wedding ring, kids safely ensconced in the back seat of her car, is what the British call "gesture politics". It's meant to send a message to her husband and her supporters. It says, "I'm my own woman, my own person, and I can pump gas and take care of my kids as I journey down the road of life."

Gee, maybe someone should give good ole Dave a copy of Janson's "History of Art".