18 North Shore Towers Courier n November 2014 Marlyn Perry always had what her kids called “hands of gold,” the kind of facility for quick and professionallooking crafts. Needlepoint, knitting, designing talis bags and the like. But she did not try carving stone until the last of her four children was grown and nearly out of the house. And when it came to sculpture, she started fast and hard. No modelling clay or wood. She went straight to stone, hard and unforgiving. The work she produced in those 30-odd years of chipping and sanding is all around her in her apartment in Building 1. Her daughter, Karen, who also lives in the Towers, occasionally organizes tea gatherings for friends and the merely curious to see Marlyn’s work. “My mother talks about what inspired her to do each piece, what making it was like,” says Karen. “She really gets into it.” One man who attended her first tea wanted to buy one of her pieces the following day, “Oh no,” she told him, “they’re not for sale.” The physical wear-and-tear of working in stone has taken its toll. Ten years ago, Marlyn tore the rotor cuff in her right shoulder and has not been able to work since. These days she lives among her work – and says moving to the Towers three and a half years ago has given her a new appreciation for it. In her old house in Rosyln, the sculptures were spread out. “But when I moved to North Shore Towers, they are now mostly in my living room,” Marlyn says. “It’s like an exhibit now. Even I get amazed. “It hit me only recently,” she says, after living closely with the work. “They all say love and are about producing love.” Le Chat Maternal Love Mother and Child Hooded Figure Sculpt Photos by Julie Weissman Elle
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