Daily Archives: July 11, 2011

Cambridge Artist Wendy Jacob Wins MFA’s 2011 Maud Morgan Prize

Published July 11, 2011

Cambridge-based artist Wendy Jacob won the the Museum of Fine Arts’ 2011 Maud Morgan Prize Monday, the MFA announced.

Jacob organized a conference in 2009 at which participants experienced sound through the floor. (Courtesy MFA)

Jacob organized a conference in 2009 at which participants experienced sound through the floor. (Courtesy MFA)

Jacob will receive $10,000, and her work will be shown in the MFA’s new Linde Family Wing for Contemporary Art, which is slated to open September 18. The Maud Morgan Prize was created in 1993 to highlight visionary women artists in Massachusetts.

Jacob is a Brookline native and spent a fair bit of time taking art classes at the MFA as a child. She studied at Williams College and the school of the Art Institute in Chicago. Currently Jacob is working at MIT’s architecture school in the Art, Culture and Technology program.

Through her work Jacob explores deeply human responses to the world around us. She has created “interactions” between people and inanimate objects, like architectural structures and furniture. Also nature and sound.

Jacob’s installations have involved deaf students at Gallaudet and she’s extremely involved with the autistic community. Her efforts to engage diverse populations in unusual ways is fascinating.

To learn more visit her website.

Bill Russell Statue To Sit In City Hall Plaza

Published July 11, 2011

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, Celtics owner Steve Pagliuca and Bill Russell announce the plan to build a Russell statue in May 2011. (AP)

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, Celtics owner Steve Pagliuca and Bill Russell announce the plan to build a Russell statue in May 2011. (AP)

With his jersey in the Garden rafters and his bust in Springfield’s Basketball Hall of Fame, all that’s missing from Bill Russell’s resume is a statue. Now, Russell can check that off, too.

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino announced this morning that a statue paying tribute to the legendary Celtics center will sit in City Hall Plaza and is set to be unveiled in the spring of 2012.

Memorializing the legendary Bostonian — perhaps the best of all-time Celtics player and NBA center — is long overdue.

After reviewing submissions, the Bill Russell Legacy Committee and the Boston Art Commission chose three artists to compete for the right to design the city’s tribute to Russell.

Fern Cunningham, who created the monument to Harriet Tubman in Boston’s South End, is one of the three finalists. Antonio Mendez with Oudens Ello Architects, who created the Players Statue at Fenway Park, and local artist Ann Hirsch are the other two.

The only question left is whether the artists will take a little license and give Russell’s statue 11 fingers — the only way to fit every championship ring he owns.