My two wood sculptures are now installed on the entrance wall leading to The Orthopedic Institute and The Surgical Institute located on the 5th floor of St. Joseph’s Medical Center since September 2007, and this Novemeber issue of the hospital’s periodical, “The Awl” has a feature on them as seen in this posting. The text is by St. Joe’s public relations.

If you’re interested, here’s how the project started. Shown here is a 4 foot X 4 inch slab of basswood aquired from a Pennsylvania “exotic wood” lumber yard. That’s me holding it upright before going to work on it.

First I cut in half, into two 2-foot X 4 -inch slabs under the watchful eye of carpenter and all around skilled craftsman, Frankie Petrillo.

Frankie took measurements.

And then carefully divided them with a saw them into two halves


I wound up with four pieces, 2-inches thick and 2-feet tall, but only 91/2-inches wide. They obviously had to be glued together side-to-side, which required the assistance of cabinet-maker Massimo who generously pitched in.

I had made cut-outs of rough drawings and laid them on the joined slabs so I could trace my designs on to the wood.

And eventually began carving

Ending up at last with the deep-relief plaques you see pictured here

This singer-songwriter, originally from NJ, moved to Miami and is now a fixture in LA’s live music scene for the past 8 years. She chose the folk-rock idiom for her autobiographical retrospective on the various “lives” she has lived, first growing up a subjugated daughter in a Sicilian home then through various stages of liberation, maturation and artistic success. Her wide-ranging vocals are sweet and supple, reminiscent of Tracy Chapman. People in her past who tried to suppress her personal fulfillment are given retroactive castigations in darkly poetic pieces like “Rearview Mirror,” “I’m Still Me” and “Light of Truth.” Although the overall attitude is often bitter, the compositions, her voice and her arrangements are always beautiful. All is not accusation. Some tracks are retrospectives of gratitude and admiration. The finale is a jaunty, ironic Italian folksong song that makes peace between Veronica and the past that she does not totally reject.
B+ In a word: Bittersweet