“Binding Contact” One of my favorite statues: Woodward, OK.
You might remember one of Shuey’s guest posts of a Barred Owl. That is is you’ve been following the blog eleven years! It is one of the most viewed posts on the blog’s existence, last time I checked.
A favorite with my art students, Swedish Artist Sculptor Claes Oldenburg passed 18 July 2022 at 93 years of age.
You may have seen some of his well known sculptures. They are huge!
Oldenburg also created giant soft sculptures– some of food- hamburger, cheeseburgers, ice cream cone, profiterole. He took everyday objects and created giant sculptures.
The Shuttlecocks in Kansas weren’t immediately embraced“…..four-large-sculpture birdies placed throughout The Nelson-Atkins-Musueum-of-Arts-Green by husband and wife team Claes-Oldenburg and Coose-van-Bruggen.(d. 2009). Each birdie weighs 5500-pounds standing nearly 18-feet-tall.”
Tuesday afternoon I met a friend for dinner. We used to teach in the same school but are in different schools across the city now. It was good to catch up. When we walked into the restaurant,La Tavola Italiana, I could not believe what I saw in front of me! A St. Joseph Feast spread from the day before. Later Carmela came out to speak with us about how we were enjoying our dinners and she was taking photos with her iPad to send to her family. She uses the iPad to keep the restaurant calendar for parties and other aspects of her business.
I asked if she made the St. Joseph Cavazunes filled with the chick peas and she said, “NO, they are Calabrese.” She is Sicilian and she makes Zeppoles.
I said that I’d photographed all the bread and would send her the photos but would she like to pose with all her handiwork and she did! I didn’t notice she put the iPad down onto the cloth in front until I saw it on the computer. She was gracious to allow me to photograph her. NEXT year we have to go to actual feast! It sounded like a terrific party.
Today my friend J(of Pittsburgh, not Omaha) and I went to the Tin Front Cafe for lunch. We heard about the St. Joseph the Worker statue having been removed from the nearby church. Judith Tener told us where to find him in a parking lot and so after lunch we wound around one- way streets and asked a few people for directions but eventually we climbed up hills and back and found this beautiful statue waiting for us. He was striking. There were the huge stone barrels pouring molten steel out onto the world. Flames carved in stone. See detail below on image three.
A big crane erected this statue (which was blessed in Italy by Pope VI) on St. Michael the Archangel Church in 1966 in Homestead. Many Slovaks helped build this church.
When the church closed, the diocese took the statue down in 2010.
People missed looking at St. Joseph high above the buildings, overlooking Homestead and the Monongahela River.
A memorial to the hard workers of the mills in this town. He was loaded on a flatbed and taken to St Anne’s now 3 combined parishes to form St. Maximilian Kolbe Parish. Read the names of the people etched in bricks- Vehec, Tarasevich, Godleski, Milchalk, Straka, Pavlik, Sklencar, Sayko to name a few.
The statue was designed by sculptor Frank Vittor (b. 1888 in Italy) who also made the Honus Wagner Statue now at PNC Park. His story on the link if you click on his name tells how he came to work with Stanford White and then a week later White was murdered…but that is not the main idea of today’s post and I am getting off track. It was just incredibly interesting. Vittor taught at Cooper Union in NYC and also at Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University)
Here are two views of the giant St Joseph the Worker statue. And a detail shot, too.
There are plans in the works to get him relocated in a place of honor but will keep you posted when this happens.
There is an historical marker honoring sculptor Frank Vittor by the Columbus Statue in Schenley Park, Pittsburgh
“The Eternal Indian, sometimes called the Black Hawk Statue (dedicated in 1911), is a 48-foot sculpture by Lorado Taft located in Lowden State Park, near the city of Oregon, Illinois.”
There’s an eagle statue standing guard by the parking lot at the East Liberty Post Office parking lot. He looks like he was once on a building. I tried to research his story but came up empty.
A monumental sculpture by J Seward Johnson has been at PPG Place for “about four days”, the guard said.
But don’t worry. The giant dancers will be in place until October.
Dancing at Bougival(painted in 1883 by Pierre A. Renoir ) is in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
70-200 lens close-up
Note: August 2020. This post inspired after seeing Pittsburgh Artist Jack Puglisi ‘s Pointillist work “The Dance” from his MASTERWORKS series – remembered I had photographed this sculpture in 2014.
My sister has taken the role of a NYC tourist as she walks in the city and today she photographed Patience and Fortitude. They’re carved from pink Tennessee marble, designed by sculptor Edward Clark Potter.
“Patience and Fortitude, the world-renowned pair of marble lions that stand proudly before the majestic Beaux-Arts building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street in Manhattan, have captured the imagination and affection of New Yorkers and visitors from all over the world since the Library was dedicated on May 23, 1911.”
Memorial Tribute to Dr. Thomas E. Starzl at University of Pittsburgh by Classic Artist and Sculptor Susan Wagner
On the University of Pittsburgh campus you can see this sculpture of Dr. Thomas E. Starzl, “father of organ transplantation”, seated on an iron memorial bench.
Someone added the mask! You can visit the sculpture on Pitt’s campus, by the Cathedral of Learning lawn.
Dr. Starzl’s bronze likeness was created by sculptorSusan Wagner and unveiled in June 2018 . The statue, sporting a mask during the COVID 19 Pandemic, was photographed by a friend of a friend and asks to remain anonymous.
Thanks for sharing this photo documenting our collective experience and reminding us of safety measures we can all practice.
“Wagner is best known locally for her three 12-foot-tall bronze statues of Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell and Bill Mazeroski at PNC Park and of the Gulf War Memorial at the 14th Quartermaster headquarters in Greensburg.” From article by Deb Eardley in TribLive
