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Featured Guests

Featured Guest

Melanie Zibit
Sculptor-LINK

Melanie with sculpture
"Donna Grande"

"Broken Heart"

It's All About Arts

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Give us a brief bio of yourself.
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M.Z.: My sculpture professor told me, "You must go to Italy if you are going to be a sculptress. And so when I was twenty one, graduating from  Brandeis University magna cum laude with  honors in art,  I took myself to Carrara Italy to learn to carve from the masters.  I spent three months there and when I ran out of money I returned home. I managed to have my first one person show that spring and sold one piece.  During my twenties I alternated between living in New York City to exhibit my work and living in rural Maine.  After several years of being a poor starving artist, I went back to school to get an MEd in 1977 with the hope of teaching art. When that did not materialize I went and earned an MBA from the Harvard Business School.  Over the years I have built a second career as an educational researcher and hold a research position at Boston College.  It is only now with a reasonably well paying job, that I can afford to again pursue my sculpture.  Each year I travel to Italy to carve or cast in Pietrasanta (which means Holy Stone) which is the same town where Michelangelo carved in the Renaissance.  This year I won an competition to carve a piece for the Middleborough Library in Middleborough Massachusetts and will go to Italy in April to carve it.

My work has been described as:
"the liquid, flowing forms have been endowed with a dignified energy, dynamically serene, self-contained and communicative."
(Mitchell Siporin's description for my first exhibit.  Mitch was both a painter and much respected professor at Brandeis 1970)

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What is your medium?
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M.Z.: Sculpture in the classic materials of marble and bronze

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How long have you been doing your art?
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M.Z.:  I started sculpture when I was 18 as an undergraduate at Brandeis University.  There was no other medium that captured my passion the way sculpture did. When I carved my first piece of stone I knew I had found my medium.

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Do you make a living at your art and what advice would you give someone else who would like to do the same?
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M.Z.: No, I have another profession as well.  Carving and casting are expensive mediums and it would be difficult to maintain myself and my art on the sporadic sales of my sculpture. Having a  career besides my sculpture gives me some independence so that I can be more flexibility in my negotiations with galleries.

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What do you think is the biggest challenge facing artists today?
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M.Z.:  With a slow economy and the tension of terrorism, people don't invest in the arts. Artists have a difficult time getting grants or selling their work.  Interest in all forms of art wanes and  society looses touch with the creativity, awareness, and potential that can come through the arts.  Because of all the constraints, many  artists find it difficult to be productive.  In contrast, one can look at the arts and how they flourished during the Renaissance, a time of peace and prosperity.

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What art-related organizations do you belong to?
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M.Z.: New England Sculptors Association http://www.nesculptors.com