Greenwich Academy Alumnae

If you frequent the Cos Cob Library, at the entrance you've seen Margaret Nicholson's bronze statue of a young woman reading a book. Using her daughter as the model and taking inspiration from Emily Dickinson, Margaret invested her love of reading in every fold and curve of this piece. Her artistic talents traveled through family lines from her grandmother, portrait painter Margaret Fernald Dole, and it was she with whom Margaret studied drawing as a child. After being graduated from GA and Mount Holyoke College, Margaret continued drawing, painting and picture-making at the Frank Reilly School of Art in New York, took further study at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and then privately with Edgar Whitney and Nelson Shanks. After a hiatus from painting while raising her family, Margaret took a class in drawing with Evangelos Frudaykis, a venture that led to the study and practice of sculpture.

Margaret describes the bronze-casting process as long and dependent on the services of many to accomplish results. After the spark of an idea, she draws images of her thoughts until the concept takes shape. She uses living models to make scale models in plasticene in order to work out details of proportion, style and composition. Next, she enlarges the sculpture to life-size or the appropriate size she is trying to achieve. At this stage, Margaret hires a plaster-caster to make the plaster cast and plaster model of the sculpture. She works on the casting to make sure that the different elements fit and the surface looks well. Next, the cast goes to the foundry, where the plaster cast is filled with wax and left to harden. The cast is broken away from the new hollow wax form, and Margaret is able to rework any areas that need attention. The foundry then makes a new mold around the outside of the wax and fills it inside as well. When molten wax is poured into this mold, the wax melts out a drain hole and the bronze rushes in to fill the space between the inner and outer molds. The result is a bronze that needs a lot of metal filed off in places where the air was vented during casting. The next step is to work with various patinas for the final coloration, which will vary according to the setting of the piece. Finally, a good coat of wax is applied, and the piece is transported to its site. Margaret notes that these extra services add to the price and time needed to produce even a small bronze.

Margaret has exhibited in shows at the Catherine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club, the National Arts Club, the American Artists Professional League, the Pen and Brush Club, Lever House, the Union League of Philadelphia, Woodmere Art Museum, Gloucester County College and the Salamagundi Club. Her works are in many private collections. She has served as a council member of the National Sculpture Society and is currently on the editorial board of Sculpture Review.

Q: What inspires your art?
A: "Beauty in the articulation of the human body, the variety of nature, inventiveness in the mind of man, the growth of living things, the relation between humans and technology, other pictures and sculptures, design elegance in any field, a gesture, a word, a song — inspiration is everywhere. It's all connected. For example, when I was commissioned to do the sculpture for the Cos Cob Library, a poem by Emily Dickinson resonated with me because I love to read:

He ate and drank the precious words,
His spirit grew robust;
He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was dust.
He danced along the dingy days,
And this bequest of wings
Was but a book. What liberty
A loosened spirit brings!

With a sense of gratitude for many happy hours of reading, I set out to make a reading sculpture and used my daughter as a model. Reading is physically passive, but as the poem describes, it is anything but passive mentally. So I thought to use the body in a coil shape as a symbol of stored energy with its focus being the book."

Q: How did GA prepare you for your career in art?
A: "Like all great human endeavors, art needs the best that is in people. Science, philosophy, teaching, invention, law, business, the arts all need people who are dedicated to excellence and to the attempt to decipher the truth — all those who care hugely about their subjects. GA gave us teachers who tried to prove these things possible both by example and technique. GA instilled in me a sense that character could take you through anything and that you could find the resources within yourself to meet any challenge."

Q: Did you have any mentors at GA who inspired you?
A: "During the twelve years that I attended GA, I lived in the same home as my grandparents and my grandmother was a very fine portrait painter. She encouraged me, showed me how someone could work as an artist, suggested ways to become an artist, and in this way, was a mentor. But I would have to say that GA offered many models of excellence, and I still admire the patience, kindness and dedication of the faculty. Respect for the individual always was evident, even when we were doing our best to annoy the faculty, and like most healthy high-spirited adolescents, we often did just that. Attention to detail and perseverence until you got it right were lessons that, at the time, seemed frustrating and painful, especially if you had to stay late for Latin make-up when you wanted to be at an important hockey game. So, thank you Miss Pease."

Q: How did you train for your career after GA?
A: "When I graduated from GA (and even now), I was interested in so many things that I went happily to a liberal arts college that offered time to read in many fields. I often spent my time reading in areas that were not in the syllabus. At the time that I was graduated from Mount Holyoke, abstract art was very much the fashion of the day, and traditional skills were not being emphasized at art schools. The Frank Reilly School of Art offered classical training, which was unique and comprehensive. Study with other individual artists followed as my interests evolved from picture-making to portraiture to sculpture."

Q: What is your advice for students and alumnae interested in pursuing fine art as a career?
A: "Find the best teachers. Keep trying to understand exactly what it is that you wish to say or have to contribute. 'Know thyself,' or as the message above the Brunswick door says, 'With all thy getting, get understanding.' Each of us, in greater or lesser measure, will encounter forces of discord, war, bitterness and despair; art offers an incredible opportunity to celebrate the joy, the beauty and the positive truths of life, indeed, to affirm to some that these positive truths are most important. Go for it! And have a wonderful time."

Marian, plasticene, 10-inch x 12-inch