A wooden sculpture titled \u201cThe Steelworker and Family\u201d has long been the symbol of Blawnox, but only recently has the artwork\u2019s backstory come to light.<\/p>\n
Historian and author Tom Powers said the sculpture is enjoying renewed interest after he chose it to adorn the cover of the borough\u2019s recent centennial book.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe mystery that accompanied the sculpture is the result of a lack of information about the artist,\u201d Powers said.<\/p>\n
Multiple marriages and moves across the globe left an incomplete trail on Oregon artist Mildred Jerome.<\/p>\n
Her wood relief depicting a mill worker was commissioned by the Treasury Department as part of the New Deal Works of Art during the Roosevelt era. In the years following the Great Depression, there was a push to showcase public art to uplift spirits by illustrating familiar, positive subjects.<\/p>\n
Council President Debbie Laskey said \u201cThe Steelworker and Family\u201d perfectly represented the borough\u2019s grit and growth in the early 1940s \u2014 and to this day.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe mill worker and his family are what brought the town to life,\u201d Laskey said. \u201cBlawnox is one big family unit. This is who we are \u2014 a community family.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mill workers who labored at the borough\u2019s namesake manufacturing facility, Blaw-Knox Co., faced extreme conditions to forge a better life for their family, Laskey said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey hoped for a better life for their children and their children\u2019s children, all in a country-like setting,\u201d she said. \u201cI believe those first families that came to Hoboken (the original name of Blawnox) in the early years would be extremely proud that the town survived when the mills closed and that Blawnox remained a quaint, small, folksy town with many grand years ahead.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe family sculpture will continue to remain the strength of our community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jerome, the artist, was born in Atlanta, Ga., before spending her school-age years in Portland, Ore. She left her first husband, a publishing agent, in 1931 for ambitions to study art in Italy.<\/p>\n
After returning to the U.S., Jerome attended the Art Students League in New York City and taught sculpture for several years.<\/p>\n
She later became a supervisor for the Federal Art Project and completed three bas-relief sculptures for the Treasury Department. They included \u201cThe Post\u201d in 1938 for the former post office in New Milford, Conn., and \u201cTreaty of William Penn and the Indians\u201d in 1939 for the post office in Turtle Creek, which remains on display.<\/p>\n
The Blawnox-based sculpture, which stands several feet tall, was showcased in the former borough post office along Freeport Road from 1941 to 1984, when the facility closed.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone saw that it was going to be tossed or destroyed and salvaged it,\u201d Powers said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was placed in borough council chambers, where it got some prominence and where it remains to this day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Powers\u2019 choice to highlight \u201cThe Steelworker and Family\u201d wasn\u2019t the first time the piece of art has been published.<\/p>\n
It appeared in Evert and Gay\u2019s \u201cDiscovering Pittsburgh\u2019s Sculpture\u201d book in 1983 and is featured on websites such as \u201cLiving New Deal,\u201d \u201cNew Deal\/WPA Art in Pennsylvania\u201d and \u201cList of New Deal Sculpture.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen researching the sculpture, it\u2019s sometimes listed as missing,\u201d Powers said. \u201cBut it\u2019s been in Blawnox all along.\u201d<\/p>\n
Briefly, during the 1970s, the wood sculpture was washed with a coat of silver paint. \u201cThankfully, that has been removed,\u201d Powers said.<\/p>\n
Blawnox historical committee member Angi Yucas said the sculpture was the obvious choice for the borough\u2019s centennial book cover.<\/p>\n
There were several contenders, but Yucas said the team wanted something that represented the community in broad terms. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur monthly meetings were held in the borough building, in council chambers where the family sculpture was on display,\u201d she said. \u201cWe had been looking at the obvious choice all along. It is historical and reflects our strong community spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A wooden sculpture titled \u201cThe Steelworker and Family\u201d has long been the symbol of Blawnox, but only recently…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,501,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-294956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}