The annual Armenian sculpture reconfiguration and its' meaning to all of us each and every March.

The Armenian Heritage Park is a monument having dynamic educational interaction between the people who visit it learning about the genocide of the Armenian people and their Armenian journey to America.

The Annual Reconfiguration of the abstract sculpture: the end of March of each calender year.

The Abstract Black Metal Sculpture, a split dodecahedron, at Armenian Heritage Park on the Green way is reconfigured in celebration of the immigrant experience. The annual reconfiguration commemorates all who were pulled away from their country of origin and came to these Massachusetts shores reconfiguring their lives in new and different ways, contributing to the richness of the American life and culture.

The Labyrinth symbolizes the career avenues the Armenian immigrants have taken to recreate their lives within the Boston area. Art, Sciences, Commerce and Education are the pathways of these tormented peoples in their own homeland in 1925.

The fountain in its center, symbolizes hope for the future ceasing of the genocide of Armenian people and any and all future people of this earth.

"Boston Bronze and Stone Speak To Us" can be purchased at the following locations: Old North Church Gift Store, Bestsellers Bookstore Cafe, USS Constitution Museum Gift Sore, Museum Of Science Gift Store, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble Book Stores. 

It is cold again in Boston, MA! Our Boston Monuments of Bronze and Stone make us feel it!

The above photo is taken from "The Boston USA" Facebook newsfeed. The winter cap made for this modern Spanish Bronze sculpture reflects the sensitivity, frolic and feeling Bostonians have for their public works of art.

"Baby Head" or "Night" mirrored by "Day" bronze work, guarding the Fenway entrance of Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, surprises us as we enter the historic MFA.

People are continuously interacting with these assessable public art sculptures. The "Day"photo above emits this winters' cold and snowy characterics. Bostonians answer these prolonged wintry days and nights with tasteful humor.

"Day" and "Night" by Antonio Lopez Garcia modeled these after his second granddaughter, Cameron. One with eye open and another with eyes closed.

 
 “The hallmark of López’s work is its timelessness; he is an old master in the contemporary world.” 

As the author of "Boston Bronze and Stone Speak To Us", I truly enjoy this dynamic interaction between our public art monuments and boston's citizenry.

"Boston Bronze and Stone Speak To Us" can be purchased at the following locations: Old North Church Gift Store, Bestsellers Bookstore Cafe, USS Constitution Museum Gift Sore, Museum Of Science Gift Store, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble Book Stores.

Verona commissions replica 'Juliet" statue after one too many brushes with tourists ; Italy

I am publishing this article with due respect to Skye Wentworth my former book promoter of "Boston Bronze and Stone Speak To Us" and friend. Sharing this news of another important monument with respect to love and romance is just another example of how important and meaningful an immortal bronze sculpture, such as this one, can touch we mortals. Our hearts can relate with this universal feeling of heart felt gain and loss in our life relationships.

Verona was the Italian Renaissance city of the two infamous long blood feuding families in Shakespeare's play "Romeo & Juliet".

Although, this statue is constructed with stone plinth and bronze figure, daily emotions flow between tourists and monument. Again here is anoher example of mounments speaking to us. Touching our inner most emotions, feelings and intellect, sculpture speaks and teaches us.

2. Statue of Juliet, created by the Veronese sculptor Nereo Constantini in 1972.

I am republishing an editor from Rome, Italy:

By Nick Squires, Rome

3:44PM GMT 25 Feb 2014

"It, Juliet sculpture, is meant to bring good fortune for those who are unlucky in love, but a tradition of rubbing the right breast of a bronze statue of Juliet has left it looking decidedly the worse for wear.

The caressing touch of tens of thousands of thwarted romantics has done such damage that this week the statue was removed from the courtyard of what is known as Juliet’s House in Verona, the city where Shakespeare set his tale of “star-cross’d lovers”.

A local foundry has been commissioned to make an exact replica of the bronze at a cost of 20,000 euros (£16,500).

The original statue will be consigned to a museum, far from the daily assault of the broken-hearted and incurably romantic.

The statue is showing signs of wear and tear, not just from being touched by so many tourists but also because of rain and the effects of the weather,” Erika Righetti, from Verona city council, told The Telegraph."

Wall of Love pictured here to the right. Romantics' signatures from all over the world.

"Boston Bronze and Stone Speak To Us" can be purchased at the following locations: Old North Church Gift Store, Bestsellers Bookstore Cafe, USS Constitution Museum Gift Sore, Museum Of Science Gift Store, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble Book Stores.

Walker Hancock, sculptor, from Gloucester, MA was one of the real "Monument Men"

The most recent movie from Hollywood entitled "Monument Men"was based on a true story during our past World War II era. Walker Hancock, a sculptor from Gloucester,  is portrayed in this film by actor John Goodman.

The historical and artistic significance of this film illustrates the importance of art and sculpture as Deanie Hancock French, daughter of Walker Hancock, says: "As citizens of the world we rely on the threads of all the people who came before us. It's a lively movie and gets the story. It romanticizes some things but it delivers the message — we must not desecrate our human history."

Sculptures and paintings of the past are all our concerns. They commemeorate and define our lives. Art is what makes us human. All civilizations must respect, nurture and protect it, for all posterity, even if we have to risk our lives for it.

Hancock went on to receive after the war the National Medal of Art and National Medal of Freedom. He is responsible for creating the portrait busts of Presidents George Bush, Abraham Lincoln and James Madison, Chief Justice Warren Burger, poet Robert Frost, Gen. Douglas MacArthur and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr..Here below a light hearted mythical ocean creature"Triton""enhances the public gardens of "Stacy Blvd Gloucester, MA. Art and sculpture have meaning and value for all of us.

"Boston Bronze and Stone Speak To Us" can be purchased on Amazon.com

Happy Birthday! George Washington by Thomas Ball, Charlestown, MA sculptor.

Boston Public Gardens – Arlington St. Thomas Ball (1819 -1911), Sculptor Bronze/Stone

In Honor of George Washington's Birthday 2/22/14

Sculptor Thomas Ball created this equestrian statue of George Washington which was cast, mounted, and dedicated in 1869. The statue’s sword has been broken so often by vandals that it was finally replaced with fiberglass. The plaster study of it is on display in the Boston Atheneum Reading Room.

Since 1776, George Washington has been called The Father of Our Country by his fellow Americans. If there was an American Mount Olympus, Washington would be at the pinnacle.

Since the 1790s his image was everywhere on paintings, coins, prints, plates as well as seen here as a statute.

John Adams once said that George Washington had “the gift of taciturnity,” meaning he had an instinct for the eloquent silence. Here depicted as the resilient Military General of the American Revolution, not obsessed with winning battles but stead fast in his will to keep his Continental Army surviving and alive, wearing down the will of the British Army.

George Washington’s strength, whether it be military or political, was in his ability to surrender his omnipotent power as a leader in both positions of leadership.

Washington began the tradition of a two-term presidency, national unity and the long standing policy of independence from foreign powers, Proclamation of Neutrality “the strategy of enlightened procrastination.” (Ellis,127-131 )

Happy Birthday to George Washington, father of our country, from Joe Gallo author of "Boston Bronze and Stone Speak To Us"another celebration of great American events and people through the medium of Boston Statues and Monuments.
"Boston Bronze and Stone Speak To Us"can be purchased At Bestsellers Bookstore Cafe, Old North Church Gift Store, Amazon.com and Barnesd & Noble Book Stores.



An example of leadership: Bill Russell Monument, more than a basketball player.

Bill Russell:  Bronze : Sculptor Ann Hirsch

By Brian MacQuarrie, Globe Staff

"Celtics legend Bill Russell attended a star-studded unveiling of a statue of himself on City Hall Plaza today.

Russell said he enjoyed the artist’s (Ann Hirsch) work and quipped that she had done a good job “considering what she had to work with.”

The unveiling of the 6-foot-10, 600-pound statue, held under a tent, was attended by, among others, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, Celtics owner Steven Pagliuca, and outgoing NBA Commissioner David Stern.

Outside the tent, in the wind and rain, a crowd of about 200 gathered, chanting, “Thank you, Bill Russell. Thanks for all the championships.” Russell looked at the crowd, gave them a broad smile and a quick wave.

He then was spirited away in a golf cart to a reception at a nearby downtown office building.

A public ceremony had been scheduled, but it was scaled back due to inclement weather, officials said.

Those in the room for the reception included former Celtics players Sam Jones, Jojo White, Satch Sanders, and Bill Walton. Other former players included Charles Barkley and Bill Lanier.

Those attending said that Russell contributed not just on the basketball court, but by his support for civil rights and education for children.

Russell, 75, who looked trim, wearing a gray suit coat and pants, with a blue shirt, became emotional when he said all he ever wanted to do was to make his father proud and live each day that way."

As the author of "Boston Bronze and Stone Speak To Us", I feel this monument speaks not just about physical strength of any successful athlete, but also about an athlete 's spiritual strengths and values that lead him or her to their goals.
Bill Russell was not just another basketball athlete for kids like me but also a team leader. A unique shining star of our Boston Afro-American community, a strong role model for both men like Gov. Deval Patrick and myself.

"Boston Bronze and Stone Speak To Us" can be purchased on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble Bookstores, Old North Church Gift Shop, Bestsellers Cafe Bookstore etc.

Dorothea Dix Fountain, a Boston Monument

Dorothea Lyne Dix Fountain 

Sculptor   Warren Freederfield      1984 redo replica of 1888 Granite sculpture

Dorothea Lynde Dix (April 4, 1802 – July 17, 1887) was an American activist on behalf of the indigent insane who, through a vigorous program of lobbying state legislatures and the United States Congress, created the first generation of American mental asylums. During the Civil War, she served as Superintendent of Army Nurses, her even handed care of both Union and Confederate Soldiers alike.

 But her health broke down, and from 1824 to 1830 she was chiefly occupied with the writing of books of devotion and stories for children. Her Conversations on Common Things (1824) had reached its sixtieth edition by 1869. In 1831 she established in Boston a model school for girls, and conducted this successfully until 1836, when her health again failed. In hopes of a cure, in 1836 she traveled to England, where she had the good fortune to meet the Rathbone family.

 The Rathbones were Quakers and prominent social reformers. Dix met men and women who believed that government should play a direct, active role in social welfare. She was also exposed to the British lunacy reform movement, whose methods involved detailed investigations of madhouses and asylums, the results of which were published in reports to theHouse of Commons.

Dix circa 1850-55
 She was instrumental in the founding of the first public mental hospital in Pennsylvania the Harrisburg State Hospital in 1853.
 The outcome of her lobbying was a bill to expand the state's mental hospital in Worcester, Ma.

The culmination of her work was the Bill for the Benefit of the Indigent Insane, legislation to set aside 12,225,000 acres of Federal land (10,000,000 acres  for the benefit of the insane and the remainder for the "blind, deaf, and dumb"), with proceeds from its sale distributed to the states to build and maintain asylums. Dix's land bill passed both houses of Congress, but in 1854 President Franklin Pierce vetoed it.

Dorothea Dix gave this what appears to be a water fountain for citizens, instead a horse watering stop in the middle of the city of Boston, to the George Thorndikes Angel’s animal humane society for dumb animals.

"Boston Bronze and Stone Speak To Us" intends to add this granite historical Boston Monument into our next edition.

"Boston Bronze and Stone Speak To Us" can be purchased on Amazon.com, Best Sellers Cafe Book Store, Old North Church Gift Shop, Barnes& Noble Book Stores.