February 4, 2011
Master Stone Carver Barbara Segal, Pipe Production Line Master Stone Carver Barbara Segal According to accomplished Westchester sculptor Barbara Segal, Lace fabric “Sculptures can bring individuals and communities together, as well as establish bonds among people of all ages. “Barbara, a 1970 graduate of Scarsdale High School, understood this concept at a young age. She was inspired by her great-grandfather ornately carved furniture, which he produced in the early 1900 for his shop on the Lower East Side. Barbara was amazed by the craftsmanship and the incredible dedication that shone through his finished pieces. She felt a strong bond with her great-grandfather artistry and knew that sculpting could also be her future.
At Scarsdale High School, Barbara was fortunate to have nurturing teachers who saw her potential. One of those teachers was Mr. Beckerman, an art teacher, who gave Barbara permission to install a massive sculpture of Lace fabric a giraffe outside the art room by the main stairwell. Barbara cherishes this memory as the first time her work was exhibited in public. This exhibition would portend things to come, for her works have been shown in galleries and museums throughout the United States and Europe . After graduating Scarsdale High School, Barbara attended Pratt Institute. Her pivotal moment came in thesummer following her freshman year when she participated in a study abroad program in Pietrasanta, Italy. She was captivated by European culture and decided to move to Paris and attend L cole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts. After spending two years in Paris, Barbara moved back to Pietrasanta and to Michelangelo Carrara. It was there that she met some of the world greatest artisans and artists and learned traditional Renaissance techniques from those individuals, who are to this day some of her closest friends.
Returning to New York in 1976, Barbara found work at the historic Roman Bronze Works in Astoria, Queens. She was the first woman ever to be hired there as an artisan and credits the refined technical skills she learned in Italy for that distinction. Leaving her Chelsea loft in 1990, Barbara moved into a Queen Anne Victorian overlooking the Hudson River in Yonkers. She has become very involved with Lace fabric the City of Yonkers, starting a non-profit organization called Art on Main Street (AOMSY) whose mission was to bring art and culture to downtown Yonkers. Through AOMSY Barbara led other artists to create a permanent sculpture park of limestone and Vermont marble benches along the Hudson, named Yonkers Sculpture Meadow on the Hudson, which opened in 2003. Barbara was given the honor of creating one of four outdoor stone rooms within the park; she named that room Cloud Living Room. Barbara artistry can also be seen in the middle of downtown Yonkers. She competed in and won a NYC Metropolitan Transportation Authority / Arts for Transit commission. Her sculpture, entitled Muhheakantuck, River that Flows Two Ways, is made of two seventy-two foot cast aluminum sculptures of water formations that are installed on both sides of the Yonkers Metro-North viaduct. relative: