Miriam

As a person who tends to work too hard, I need to be reminded of dance. As one whose faith tends towards the serious and the struggle, I need to be reminded of play. After crossing the Red Sea, Miriam breaks into dance, she the prophet, she the leader of women, she the leader of dancers. Tambourine held high, I imagine her leading the women in a great dance of celebration.

She reminds me of how important dance is as an expression of faith. I never learned this very well as a man, having learned to express my faith in many ways that never included dance. Learning to dance late in life, I created this sculpture to remind me that in my inward being there is always a dancer. I dance sometimes with minute hand gestures and sometimes with broad sweeps across the room, and sometimes, I admit, in the cover of darkness and sometimes in broad daylight. Miriam in her deep faith takes up the tambourine and calling to the music of my soul summons me into holy dance.

The Madonna of Hunger

When I worked in India, I saw poverty and hunger in ways that I had never seen before. The struggle of the human being simply to survive moved me deeply. Seeing children who needed some drops of milk or a bowl of rice in a world where across the globe people lived in plenty disturbed me greatly. How was it that I grew up and went to school and never saw such desperate poverty and struggle?

The Madonna of Hunger was my attempt as a sculptor to enter into this world with my fingers, my hands, and my soul. I imagined Mary and the child, Jesus, standing with the poor, hoping enough milk would flow to nourish the babies before they died. As a sculptor I wanted to give voice to the voiceless and let the voiceless speak to us, let the shunned image touch and move our eyes, so that this world becomes ever present and not forgotten as we rush through our days.

 Gurdon Brewster

email: Gurdonbrewster@aol.com

Miriam
Bronze
17 inches tall

The Madonna of Hunger
bronze
19 inches tall