April 23, 2012: For Immediate Release by the Edgar Allan Poe Foundation of Boston


A new sculpture is coming to Boston! Please read below.



SCULPTURE HONORING EDGAR ALLAN POE IN BOSTON CHOSEN AFTER LENGTHY REVIEW PROCESS

POE TO RETURN TO CITY OF HIS BIRTH...WILL BE SEEN STRIDING ACROSS SQUARE DEDICATED TO HIM

TRIUMPHANT POE RETURNING TO BOSTON…SCULPTOR CHOSEN FROM 265 ARTISTS

ARTIST-PHILOSOPHER SELECTED TO CREATE POE STATUE

BOSTON – Stefanie Rocknak, a professional sculptor with a tandem career as a professor of philosophy in New York, has been selected to create a statue to commemorate Edgar Allan Poe in Boston, the city of his birth.

“Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most influential writers ever born in the City of Boston. As a city proud of its rich history, I’m so pleased to see this wonderful tribute come to fruition.  The statue chosen for Poe Square is full of life and motion, and is sure to inspire residents and future writers alike for generations to come,” said Mayor Tom Menino of Rocknak’s design.

A five-member artist selection committee, empowered by Boston Art Commission guidelines, has made the decision following a lengthy process involving intense public scrutiny of design proposals created by three competing finalists. The finalists were picked from a pool of 265 artists who applied for the competitive public art commission from 42 states and 13 countries.

“I propose to cast a life-size figure of Poe in bronze. Just off the train, the figure would be walking south towards his place of birth, where his mother and father once lived. Poe, with a trunk full of ideas—and worldwide success—is finally coming home,” said Rocknak of the design she calls Poe Returning to Boston.

“The sense of Poe returning triumphant with creative ideas bursting forth from his suitcase is very appealing,” according to project manager Jean Mineo.

“The review committee, and public input, conveyed great excitement with the dynamic sense of movement, accessible style, and Poe’s creative energy expressed in the proposal. There is also strong support for Steff’s approachable, ground level statue that helps humanize Poe and place him in the context of this active neighborhood,” Mineo said.

The plan calls for the statue of one of America’s most influential writers to be installed in Edgar Allan Poe Square, a tree-lined, city-owned brick plaza at the intersection of Boylston Street and Charles Street South, just two blocks north of where Poe was born in 1809. Mayor Menino dedicated the location to Poe—and to his place in Boston’s literary heritage—during bicentennial celebrations in 2009.

Poe, who at age 18 returned to Boston to publish his first book, later developed a notoriously contentious relationship with the city’s literary elite, including with local editors who seized an opportunity to criticize him upon another return to his native city for a reading in 1845, the year Poe’s most popular poem, The Raven, appeared. Poe’s final works were also published in Boston prior to his mysterious death in Baltimore in 1849.

An award-winning member of the Sculptors Guild whose artwork has appeared in numerous publications and in more than 40 exhibitions including at the Smithsonian, Stefanie Rocknak is an associate professor of philosophy and the director of the Cognitive Science Program at Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York, where she has taught since 2001. A graduate of Colby College in Waterville, Maine, with a B.A. in American Studies and Art History with a concentration in studio art, she holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Boston University. Her interests include the 18th-century Scottish philosopher David Hume (the subject of her forthcoming book), the philosophy of art, and the philosophy of the mind.

Describing her dual roles as artist and philosopher in Colby Magazine last November, Rocknak said: “Initially I kept them totally separate … but making representational art is a manifestation of my philosophical belief that all art doesn’t have to be conceptual.” She said her figurative artwork, usually created in wood, is “cathartic” representing “a way to externalize certain emotions.”

The Edgar Allan Poe Foundation of Boston appreciates support for the Poe Square Public Art Project, and the financial contributions of the City of Boston’s Edward Ingersoll Browne Trust Fund that made its planning and artist selection process possible. Construction of a finalized design of the proposed sculpture—which proponents envision by the end of next year—will depend on success of future fundraising initiatives to offset the anticipated $125,000 total cost of the project.

For more information about the Poe Square Public Art Project—and about how to contribute to the Poe Statue Fund—contact the Edgar Allan Poe Foundation of Boston at 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02116, via email at info@poeboston.org, or care of http://poeboston.blogspot.com/

The Edgar Allan Poe Foundation of Boston, Inc., is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) corporation organized exclusively for the charitable educational purpose of honoring Poe in the city where he was born in 1809.

Happy Birthday Cyrus E. Dallin from Boston.

"You may be familiar with Cyrus E. Dallins Boston monuments and statues around Boston. "Paul Revere", "Anna Hutchinson" and "Appeal To The Great Spirit" are just some of his spiritualistic memorial sculptures inspiring all of us.

Dallin, the son of Thomas and Jane (Hamer) Dallin, was born in Springville, Utah, November 1861 to a family then belonging to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. At age 19, he moved to Boston to study sculpture with T. H. Bartlett, and in 1883 entered a competition for an equestrian statue of Paul Revere. No entries were selected, but over the next 58 years Dallin made seven versions of a monument of Paul Revere.

In Boston, he became a colleague of Augustus St. Gaudens and a close friend of John Singer Sargent. He married Vittoria Colonna Murray in 1891, moved to Arlington, Massachusetts in 1900, where he lived for the rest of his life, and there raised three children. He was a member of the faculty of Massachusetts Normal Art School, since renamed Massachusetts College of Art and Design, from 1899 to 1941.

He created more than 260 works monuments and statues, including well known Boston statues of Paul Revere and of Native Americans. He also sculpted the statue of the Angel Moroni atop the Salt Lake City Temple, which has become a symbol for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and is generally the pattern for future Angel Moroni statues on the spires of subsequent LDS Temples.

Dallin was probably the first American Sculptor sensitive enough to depict American Indians as humanist spiritualistic human beings in his statues and monuments, because he grew up with Indians as a boy in Utah. Cyrus E.Dallin conveyed this above sensitivity through his Boston bronze and stone sculptures.

Happy Birthday from Joe Gallo, author of "Boston Bronze and Stone Speak To Us", a Boston guidebook of historical story telling of monuments and statues our found on Boston's parks and streets.

Edgar Allan Poe Monument, Boston, MA

Proposed Edgar Allan Poe Monument on Edgar Allan Poe Square at the corner of Charles and Boylston Streets Boston, MA is coming soon with proper future funding. "Boston Bronze and Stone Speak To Us "second edition shall surely place Poe new monument in our book for all to share!

Did you know Poe was born at this above location?

"One of the best-kept secrets in Boston's literary history concerns the most influential writer ever born here: Edgar Allan Poe. And the secret is this: he was born here! Over the past 200 years, leading up to the bicentennial of Poe's birth on January 19, 2009, his connections to other East Coast cities -- Richmond, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York -- have been celebrated and memorialized. Finally, Mayor Thomas M. Menino dedicated this above location as Edgar Allan Poe Square with a plaque.

While each of these cities hosts a museum or historic house that commemorates Poe's standing as a local author, Boston has made itself conspicuous for its apparent determination to treat the master of mystery -- America's first great critic and a foundational figure in the development of popular culture -- like an undeserving orphan.

The walking tour made possible by this brochure ( The Raven's Trail) offered by www.poeboston is designed to begin a new era in the way Poe's connection to Boston is understood and experienced. While it's true that Poe fought a career-long battle against Boston-area authors, whose moralistic poems and stories sounded to him like the croaking frogs, it's also true that he had positive feelings about the place." (The Raven's Trail 2009 ,The Edgar Allan Poe Foundation of Boston, Inc.)

Please visit for more information poeboston.org

Boston is America America is Boston!

Abraham Lincoln by Thomas Ball

Emancipation Group 1877

Park Square / Charles and Stuart Streets Thomas Ball (1819-1911), Sculptor Bronze / Stone

Freedom, release, and liberty are honored by this Thomas Ball monument.

“A duplicate casting of Thomas Ball’s Emancipation Group (originally executed for the Freedman’s Memorial Society in Washing- ton) was given to the city of Boston in 1877 by Moses Kimball and put up in Park Square.”(38 Whitehall).

The original version of this work stands in Lincoln Park in Washington, D.C.

The Great Emancipator freeing a male African-American slave modeled on Archer Alexander. The ex-slave is depicted crouching shirtless and shackled at the president’s feet.

The monument has long been the sub- ject of controversy. Despite being paid for by African-Americans because of the supplicant and inferior position of the black figure, histo- rian Kirk Savage in 1997 condemned it as “a monument entrenched in, and perpetuating, racist ideology.”



Gandhi sculpture revisited Boston Ma

—I have copied this news article to illustrate just how important our Boston Public Art and sculpture mean to our Boston citizens and ideals. Boston Public Art is always interacting and alive with our great city!

Go Boston Bronze and Stone Speak To Us!

For nine weeks, a replica of the Gandhi statue belonging to the Peace Abbey in Sherborn joined hundreds of protesters at the Occupy Boston camp in Dewey Square. While there, it offered the protesters a source of unity, and several stood to protect it as the clock struck midnight on Thursday night, many ready to be arrested during the anticipated police raid that never happened.

It was on Friday night when the police closed down the camp.

The statue moved all around the camp in its final night of occupation, standing at times along Atlantic Avenue at the front of the camp and by the media tent.

“It’s been a rallying point of solidarity,” college student Danny Foster said. “It lets people know we’re peaceful.”

Peace Abbey founder Lewis Randa accompanied the fiberglass Gandhi along with his two sons and others from the Abbey through the early-morning hours after the eviction order took effect.

They decided to leave it at the camp for one more night, and its whereabouts were unknown for a while Friday, though it became clear that protesters took it to protect it.

“It turned up in the hands of people that love that statue,” Randa said.

The statue has since returned to Sherborn, where it will be refurbished.

The Peace Abbey offered the statue to Occupy Boston in solidarity with its nonviolent message.

“It’s a powerful symbol of nonviolence,” Randa said. But, “it’s just fiberglass.”

While Randa and those who accompanied him weren’t planning to get arrested, a number of those who stood with arms-linked claimed that they were.

“It’s a powerful experience to risk incarceration over an idea,” Randa said.

Before it became clear that the police wouldn’t raid the camp Thursday night, Randa reminded the crowd, “Don’t try to protect [the statue] using anything other than nonviolence,” he said.

The statue served as a focal point for the protesters, according to Dan Dick, a longtime volunteer at the Peace Abbey. Dick, the Randas and Esther Brandon, an intern at the Abbey, arrived at the camp at 11:30 that night to look after the statue.

“I just want to be sure that he’s safe,” Dick said.

Although Randa made six visits to the protest over its lifespan, the Gandhi statue remained there at all times, unsupervised by the Peace Abbey.

“Lewis has a tremendous amount of faith,” Dick said. “[He has] an ungodly amount of trust.”

The statue did incur some damage, including the temporary misplacement of Gandhi’s eyeglasses and a broken thumb. However, someone at the camp bandaged the broken piece and even painted it to blend in with the rest of the statue’s hand.

At one point during the occupation, Gandhi’s likeness was used to block the entrance to the nearby Goldman Sachs offices, which Randa said was a more appropriate place for the protests.

“The issue is not with Boston or Mayor Menino,” Randa said.

The original Gandhi statue rests permanently on the Peace Abbey’s Sherborn lawn. The version that was occupying Dewey Square was guarded by dozens of protesters, many of whom weren’t familiar with Randa or the Peace Abbey, which needs to sell some of its property due to financial difficulty.

Although Dick wore a large fanny pack stuffed with informational materials about the Abbey for those who were interested, the goal was not to divert attention away from Occupy Boston’s message.

“Everyone has a right to be here,” Randa said. “It’s no concern of ours about getting a following.”

Randa founded the Peace Abbey based on his experience as a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War. His experience with Occupy Boston was, “as powerful as anything I experienced in the ’60s,” he said.

The Gandhi statue served as a 9-foot reminder to the protesters, and a gift to everyone involved.

“It was a gift to Occupy Boston, to that statue and to the Peace Abbey,” Randa said. “It did nothing but remind them of the importance of nonviolence.”

Read more: Gandhi statue back at Peace Abbey after stay with Occupy Boston - Dover, MA - Dover-Sherborn Press http://www.wickedlocal.com/dover/features/x278310901/Gandhi-statue-back-at-Peace-Abbey-after-stay-with-Occupy-Boston#ixzz1gcT87Ogz

Extra "Boston Bronze and Stone Speak To Us" sold!

"Boston Bronze and Stone Speak To Us"shall be sold in the Bostonian Society book stores starting February 2012 at both locations 15 State Street The Old State House and The Revolutionary Bookstore at Faneuil Market Place Boston, MA.

Bacchante and Infant Faun Boston Public Art Boston, MA

Bacchante and Infant Faun

Boston Public Library Frederick W. MacMonnies, Sculptor Bronze

“Banned in Boston, 1896,” the Boston Globe states.

This delightful light-hearted bronze piece was a gift from architect Charles Follen McKim, the designer of the original Boston Public Library. The statue depicts a nude woman holding an infant. The Boston Globe suggested that it be replaced by a “nice moral statue of a Sunday school teacher”. Further com- ments from a local minister called it “a memorial to the worst type of harlotry with which the world was ever afflicted.” McKim decided to remove it from the courtyard fountain and donate it to the New York Metropolitan Museum. The MET gladly ac- cepted.

Several years later, George Robert White, a Boston philanthropist, obtained a second “Bacchante and Infant Faun” casting and offered it to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts which they gladly accepted as well. Boston Public Library Court Yard still has the copy and not the original gifted piece to this day. Although not an original, “Bacchante and Infant Faun” defiantly and playfully dance on the fountain’s waters, meant to be an oasis for hard working academics everywhere and in every field of study.