Long time PNWS member Maria Wickwire (www.MariaWickwire.com) has completed an exciting project in the rebirth of a popular sculpture. “Anillos” won the People’s Choice Award at Lake Oswego in 2007 and became a part of the City’s permanent collection.
The ceramic sculpture was vandalized in 2019. A pile of small pieces was all that remained. In 2020, during the pandemic and all the deepening divisions surrounding us, the pieces were returned to Maria in a box marked “evidence.” She shoved the box under a worktable where it sat for three years until time and emotional fortitude prevailed. Maria was unsure at that point if it could be restored. “There was so little of her face left intact. I thought maybe if I could get her to look like herself in her face and hands, I could repair her and have her cast in bronze. The cracks would be preserved. Then gold could be applied to those cracks to emulate kintsugi, the Japanese method of repairing broken ceramics. This would add meaning to the piece which began as a visual expression of how our life experiences are in the cells of our bodies, just as trees’ lives are recorded in their growth rings.” Her name, Anillos, is Spanish for growth rings.
Recently, this story came full circle, as the bronze Anillos was unveiled at the Price Sculpture Forest (www.SculptureForest.org) as part of their permanent collection.