Sculpture

Debbie Serig and Allen Hess admire a butterfly sculpture on display in downtown Hagerstown Thursday. The giant insect is covered in copper pennies.

"Yours is a voice such as one hears once in a hundred years," so exclaimed conductor Arturo Toscanini when he heard mezzo-soprano Marian Anderson (1897-1993) sing in 1935.   A bronze sculpture of Anderson, now on exhibition at the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, was made by another admirer, the Romanian-born American sculptor Nicolaus Koni (1911-2000), who had heard her sing many times. Koni emphasized Andersons' high cheekbones and heavy eyebrows, giving the bronze sculpture a rich brown patina, or finish.

By RICHARD F. BELISLE / Staff Writer, Waynesboro photo: RIC DUGAN / staff photographer WAYNESBORO, Pa. - When Dr. M.S. Haq, a Waynesboro internist, decided to do something special for his adopted community, he had no idea his gift would become so involved or so expensive. An amateur sculptor and artist, Haq thought a serious piece of artwork on display in a prominent spot would be the best choice. "I wanted the kind of quality art that you only see in the big cities," he said.

By LAURA ERNDE Staff Writer Fred Kail, who started sculpting sports figurines on the kitchen table of his Hagerstown apartment in the 1950s, has been commissioned to produce a life-size bronze statue of football great Johnny Unitas. "This, to me, is going to be the high water mark for my career," said Kail, 60, who now lives in Lutherville, Md. The job will be personally gratifying as well. Kail has known the former Baltimore Colts quarterback for about 35 years.

by MIKE CRUPI / staff photographer enlargement GREENCASTLE, Pa. - A grove of black walnut trees will become the stage later this summer for a 250-foot long, kite-like sculpture depicting a string of tributaries feeding a large river that ends in a waterfall. The artwork will be the creation of Cindy Snodgrass, 45, an environmental sculptor from Pittsburgh. She was hired by the committee running this year's Old Home Week celebration, which runs Aug. 2 to 8, to decorate the Tayamentasachta Environmental Center on the Greencastle-Antrim School District grounds, according to Charles White, director of the center.

HAGERSTOWN - Amanda Thomas stood in front of a table of junk and accepted a challenge - take what life throws away and turn it into art. With her creative juices flowing, the 5-year-old filled her arms with soup cans, buttons, feathers and shells and headed to a work area to begin her masterpiece. The end result? "It's a sculpture of me," she announced. The Hagerstown youngster was among 40 children who participated Saturday afternoon in an art workshop at Discovery Station at Hagerstown.

HAGERSTOWN pepperb@herald-mail.com No one can duplicate Mike Callas, the late longtime Hagerstown businessman and philanthropist for whom North Hagerstown High School is naming its stadium. But Chuck Noland - after nearly 120 pounds of clay and 150 hours of molding and scraping - has been able to capture Callas' likeness in a 34-inch-tall sculpture. Noland, 54, will take the sculpture that the Mike Callas Stadium Committee commissioned him to make to New Arts Foundry in Baltimore next week to be cast in bronze, a process that will take about six months.

By LISA GRAYBEAL Staff Writer, Waynesboro WAYNESBORO, Pa. - A local doctor wants to add to the beauty and culture of Waynesboro by building a large steel sculpture and displaying it somewhere in town. Dr. Mohammad Haq, an internal medical doctor with an office on Walnut Street, presented his idea to Council at last week's meeting in hopes of generating some interest and volunteers to build it. "I've always wanted it for this town. I wanted to do something that would fit into the town," Haq said.

Scott Cawood peered closely at his sculpture - the figure of a woman - and tinkered with the elbow. He looked intent, focused. "This is about the third assemblage I've had on her elbow," he said. "I've taken two of them off. I didn't like them. " Cawood, 59, a sculptor who works in metal, is working on a commission - oversize figures of a man and a woman lifting up a baby. The figures are lifelike and muscular, but semi-mechanical. They're intended to show a synthesis of natural and mechanical parts.

Santa fishes on a frigid Hagerstown City Park lake Tuesday night as the sculpture of Diana at the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts overlooks the scene.

Scott Cawood peered closely at his sculpture - the figure of a woman - and tinkered with the elbow. He looked intent, focused. "This is about the third assemblage I've had on her elbow," he said. "I've taken two of them off. I didn't like them. " Cawood, 59, a sculptor who works in metal, is working on a commission - oversize figures of a man and a woman lifting up a baby. The figures are lifelike and muscular, but semi-mechanical. They're intended to show a synthesis of natural and mechanical parts.

Some might have seen just a pile of snow. But Amanda Hawbecker and her snow-sculpting team saw a computer. So Amanda, 7, of Hagerstown, her sister, Kayla Hawbecker, 5, and their friend, Alexandra Smith, 7, of Hancock, set to work, carving out a monitor, a keyboard, a chair and even a slide from the chair from an easy dismount from the sculpture. The sculpture won a first-place prize for the team known as Rock Star Snow Girls on Saturday at the Hancock Winter Festival at Widmeyer Park.

The sidewalks of downtown Chambersburg were so crowded at Saturday's 11th annual IceFest that people had to wait their turn to pass on the sidewalk. Carrie Hartman of Chambersburg waited patiently in line to take a photograph of her sons sitting on the giant “Ice Throne,” one of 70 ice sculptures on Main Street. “They love coming to IceFest,” Hartman said of her sons, Chase Kuykendall and Carter. Hartman's parents, Daryl and Doris Hartman, came along on the chilly adventure.

Bone-chilling cold returned to the area just in time for the first day of IceFest in downtown Chambersburg on Thursday night. Following a brief ribbon cutting ceremony on the square, IceFest kicked off its four-day winter festival with live ice sculpture carving. “This is just a wonderful event. It is a real jewel in the crown of the county as far as tourism ... it's really gratifying that it's become one of the main events of the year and that it brings so many folks to the county and offers so much to the residents of the county,” David S. Keller, chairman of the Franklin County Commissioners said following the ribbon cutting ceremony.

Building for Hunger is a charity event involving local schools and area businesses. The event is a partnership with the local Washington County Hunger Group, Valley Mall, participating schools, sponsoring businesses, and of course, the local community supplying canned and boxed foods that will be donated to the Maryland Food Bank - Western Maryland Division (formerly Food Resources Inc. Donation bins for nonperishable boxed and canned food items...

Musical performances of all styles and sounds drew a large crowd Saturday to Hagerstown Community College's Kepler Theater for a benefit variety show to help build a sculpture to honor a longtime college dignitary. Close to 100 people packed inside the theater building's recently finished “black box” room for the 15-act show, which included everything from heavily amplified rock music to piano to solo vocalist performances. Put on by the Robinwood Players Theater Club, the event is one of many fundraisers the club has hosted in support of the sculpture project in memory of Atlee C. Kepler, the school's first president who helped shape HCC into the campus that it is today, adviser Robin Shaner said.

Located in an honored place in the U.S. Capitol is a monumental bust of Abraham Lincoln. It was sculpted in 1908 from a single block of marble by the artist Gutzon Borglum (1867-1941), best known for his colossal Mount Rushmore sculpture. The Lincoln bust was donated by Eugene Meyer Jr. The pedestal was specially designed in a funerary style by the sculptor. Later bronze casts of the bust are in the collections of the White House, the Chicago Historical Society, the College of the City of New York, the Tomb of Lincoln in Springfield, Ill., and the University of California, Berkeley, Calif.

City leaders have tabled plans to commission a sculpture of Martinsburg's founder, Revolutionary War Major Gen. Adam Stephen, and place it in the newly redesigned town square. Citing costs created by changes to the recently completed town square project, Mayor George Karos told the Martinsburg City Council Thursday that "it wouldn't be very wise ... at this juncture to move forward with the selection of a sculptor for the artwork. " "What we don't know is the cost of the changes that took place down in the plaza, and let me tell you there were a lot of changes," Karos said of the $1.6 million pedestrian safety project for the town square.

Joan Bontempo, an assistant professor of art appreciation/art history and the coordinator of the art department at Hagerstown Community College, is exhibiting five ceramic mixed-media sculptures at ArtSpace in Herndon, Va. Bontempo, who graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1977, was one of 11 artists invited to participate in the “Sons and Daughters of the Golden Dome” exhibit, which features works by professors and graduates of...

Public art took flight again in Hagerstown Friday when covers flew off 27 hot-air balloon sculptures in University Plaza and along downtown streets. In one voice, more than about 200 people counted down the unveiling of the unique pieces created to raise money for the Barbara Ingram School for the Arts. 5...4...3...2...1... "Wow!," one woman said. "Look at it," someone else chimed in to the din of claps and cheers. Known as Take Flight II, the balloons are the second civic arts project undertaken by the Barbara Ingram School for the Arts Foundation to raise funds for the school.