SCULPTURE AND POETRY BY THIS BLOG'S AUTHOR

The last post in this series features some of the work done by Shaw Kenawe.

I studied sculpting with Peter Abate who taught at the Museum School, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass., and with Angelica Lee, who taught at the Decordova Museum, Lincoln, Mass. I spent a month in Pietrasanta, Italy, where, while working at the Beani and Cacia Bronze Foundry, I produced two pieces of bronze sculpture, one of which is pictured above, "la cacciatrice," The Huntress.

The other two pieces pictured above are, "Brown Seal Pup," carved in brown alabaster and is now in a private collection, and "Nymph," a bronze sculpture done in the cera perduta [lost wax method], and is also in a private collection.

I have been a member of various art associations in the New England area including The New England Scultpors Association [past president], the Cambridge Art Association, the Concord Art Association, the Cape Cod Art Association, and was named "Copley Artist" as a member of the Copley Art Association, the oldest art association in America. In order to be accepted as a Copley Artist, a member has to have her work accepted into at least 5 juried shows. Members of these juries include gallery owners and sculptors, painters and other visual artists.

My work has been shown in various art galleries in New England as well as in the Decordova Museum and is included in private collections in the US, Italy and France.

Poetry:

My poetry has been published in a number of journals and anthologies across the US, and in 1997, I won the Grolier Prize [not connected to the encyclopedia].

The Grolier Prize was sponsored for many years by the Grolier Poetry Bookshop in Harvard Square, Cambridge--the oldest poetry-only bookstore in America. As the winner of the competition that year, I was invited to sign the Poets' Book, where Seamus Heaney, Robert Pinsky, Alan Ginsberg, and many, many more poets have signed their names. That honor was overwhelming, and I will never forget it.

The lastest publication that includes my poetry is "Kiss Me Good Night," an anthology, published in 2005 by Ann Murphy O'Fallon and Margaret Noonan Vailancourt of Minnesota features poetry by women who lost their mothers.

Here are a few reviews:

"Missing their mothers as mom and role model and feeling the loss of her nurturing, these women found that talking to others, even all these years later, was therapeutic. And writing allowed them to help many others. My most lasting word image is one woman looking through a photo album of a mom she vaguely remembers and seeing a "Kodachrome vitality." Maybe that's a reminder to us to keep family pictures updated to capture our own vitality. Armchair Interviews says: Powerful, powerful words and the emotions they bring. Kiss Me Goodnight is for those women who have already lost their mother--and those who cannot even bear to think about that happening to them. "

By
Linda Goodman Robiner (University Heights, OH) -This book is a touching collection of poetry and personal stories that will move any reader. Through these women's specific stories, we get to our own personal feelings; the feelings are universal. Although my mother lived till she was 96, I can relate to the depth of emotion expressed by the writers, the poignancy of their observations, the sweetness or anger or loneliness of their images. A non-Catholic, I am deeply moved by Ann Murphy O'Fallon's essay, "Lilacs." She tells how it was when she was nine and the priest came to give her mother Extreme Unction, and they had to dress up for him. Her 13-year-old sister tells her, "It's because she is dying, don't you know anything?" Joanne Kelley ends her poem, "Missing," with the lines, "Imagine a winter so hard that no birds survive and nothing moves in the ice." Cindy Washabaugh writes in her poem, "For Pam, Who Can't Remember," "Grandma stood at the stove crying in the same small voice she laughed in, making Campbell's soup for everyone at 8:45 in the morning because, she said, soup makes you feel better."

The highlighted words in these reviews are passages from two of my three poems included in the anthology.