To Grace Yonkers Station, Work That Mirrors River
By Roberta Hershenson
Feb. 8, 2004
THE Yonkers sculptor Barbara Segal is a champion of public art. Her carved stone ''Cloud Living Room'' invites exploration and repose by visitors to the Sculpture Meadow on the waterfront in Yonkers, a public art project that she headed.
Ms. Segal was the executive director of Art on Main Street in Yonkers until the demise of the program, which used art to breathe life into dilapidated downtown areas.
Now Ms. Segal is involved in her most dramatic public art project to date, a sculpture that will crown the renovation of Metro-North's station in Yonkers.
Her proposal was chosen from 65 submissions by other artists in a competition sponsored by the Arts for Transit program of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
Before cliffs on the Yonkers side of the river yielded to development, Ms. Segal said, citing her research, river met rock at just the spot where the sculpture will be installed.
Ms. Segal, who studied sculpture in Italy and France, was one of five finalists invited to present fully developed proposals for the viaduct.
The deputy director of the Arts for Transit program and manager of the Yonkers project, Jodi Moise, said of Ms. Segal's submission: ''This one captured the spirit. The artists had to be very sympathetic about the space, which is long and narrow. Aesthetically, this fit the space very well.''
Ms. Segal said the selection panel also approved of her choice of materials, a low-maintenance aluminum that can be power-washed, and displays no fancy attachments, like special light bulbs that need changing.
The sculpture will be installed in the spring of 2005, when the station is expected to be completed.
Metal casting of the plaster work, which Ms. Segal sculptured in her studio until it outgrew the space, has been taking place in sections at Polich Art Works here, near Beacon.
Ms. Segal completed the plaster original at the foundry, which is noted for casting sculptures by Louise Bourgeois, Julian Schnabel, Frank Stella and others.
Foundry workers are using 425 pounds of aluminum heated to 1,325 degrees to cast each section, which will eventually be painted and finished to reflect every nuance of shifting light.
Since the founding of the Arts for Transit program 19 years ago, 135 art projects have been commissioned and installed, with 90 more in the works.
Among those completed are glass murals by Tova Snyder, a White Plains artist, at the Harrison train station; and glass murals by Marjorie Blackwell, formerly of Mount Vernon, at the Mount Vernon station.
Since the money allotted by the M.T.A. for sprucing up stations is less for some than for others, not all Metro-North stations under renovation will be graced by a new artwork.
''Some of the stations are very low budget,'' Ms. Moise said, ''so not everyone gets a project.''