Happy Mother's Day, Dorothea!

Not to be maudlin, but I haven't been able to send a Mother's Day card since 1974.  And with one exception, I can't think of anyone in my peer group who still can.  So meeting Susan and Dorothea, her 97-year-old mother yesterday at the Ann Norton Sculpture Garden in West Palm Beach was kinda special.  

Dorothea lived on her own until February; Susan had flown in from California to celebrate the occasion for the 72nd time with her mom.  Wow!  When I asked Dorothea if this was her first visit, she replied "Yes,  My husband always wanted to come.  But then he died," she said wistfully.  Aging singly has its advantages.

"Do you know who's also named Dorothea?" I asked. I'm not sure she heard me but Susan, a nurse, wanted to know. "Dorothea Brooke," from Middlemarch. "Oh my god, that was my favorite book when I was a girl! Should I read it again?" "Absolutely!" I replied.

Gateway 1 (1972-74)

Thom, who lost his mother while we were traveling in Africa, marveled at Dorothea, too. "Her hair, her nails, the jewelry--she's perfectly done up!" "Vanity is the last thing to go before appetite," I replied. Ever courtly, he also helped Dorothea, who had broken her hip in a recent fall, get out of the museum and into her car.  

Coquina, a sedimentary building material mined from shell deposits off the coast of eastern Florida, covers the terrace and many of the winding paths with grace notes of moss.   

The grounds also include Ann Norton's home and studio.  Born in Selma, AL, Ann Weaver married the founder of the nearby Norton Museum of Art well into her career, when she was 40 and he was a 70-year-old widower.  He died five years later, leaving her the property and an income that would allow her the freedom to create the tucked-away sculpture garden that has become her unusual and underappreciated legacy.

The sculpture garden hosts works by four other artists every year to keep things fresh.  We were lucky enough to catch the Alex Katz exhibit.  Like Dorothea, he's still going strong at the same age.

Norton's studio is just as she left it upon her death in 1982.  She's buried in Live Oak Cemetery which, when I visited last summer, did not include her on the list of notable grave sites.  Shame on them--again!

I'm assuming this is a study for "Seven Beings," perhaps her finest work.

Scaffolding made it possible for Norton, barely five feet tall herself, to sculpt the gender-nonspecific figures in three groups from pink Norwegian granite.  Completed in 1965, "Seven Beings" is the earliest example of Norton's "monumental" phase, influenced by her travels to Utah (materials) and the Far East (spiritual themes).

(partial view)

Much of her oeuvre also can be described as immobile, a factor which likely makes Norton less well known than she might otherwise be outside the Palm Beach area, or why none of these pieces are included in the sculpture garden at the Norton Museum, just a few blocks away.

Gateway 5 (1977)

Gateway to Knowledge (1983-84)

Untitled Horizontal Sculpture (1979)

There's also an orchid house

. . . and a cobwebbed grotto.  Next time we'll bring a bottle of wine and a picnic lunch!