Passing by the Boston Public Garden on a lazy summer afternoon, it’s hard to miss one of the city’s most iconic landmarks. The Make Way for Ducklings sculpture marches along the edge of the garden’s path. Yet, beneath the surface (and often, decorations), of Mrs. Mallard and her eight ducklings is a tale that reaches to Newton, the hometown of sculptor Nancy Schön.
The Newton that the 95-year-old sculptor grew up in was vastly different from what it has grown into today. “In the middle of Newton Center, there’s a horse trough,” Schön said. “It’s where they now plant flowers…it used to be a place where…guys came to water their horses.”
Schön attended the Rice School in her youth before heading to the Mason School, which is now the Langley Lot in the middle of Newton Center, after which she attended Weeks Junior High, then the original Newton High School.
When she was in school, she did not know she would become an artist. Looking back now, she says, “when I went to school, I was sort of good at art. I used to like to do dioramas…In third grade, there was a teacher who hung my painting on the wall. And so she sort of encouraged me when I was younger. And I don’t know, it just kind of happened. It was not a straight line.”
As can be seen with Mrs. Mallard and her eight ducklings, Schön places a strong emphasis on the interactive nature of her work. Upon a visit to a park in Haifa, Israel, Schön was inspired by small children interacting with a series of animal sculptures. “There was something about that interaction that really changed my thinking…sculpture wants to be touched.”
Due to the interactive nature of her work, Schön casts her sculptures in bronze, a highly durable metal.
Even Schön’s darker, more political work is interactive. Her experience as a woman in a male-dominated field gave her a keen eye for injustice, which she strongly incorporated into later sculptures. One of her recent pieces, debuting at the beginning of the year, comments on the ongoing war in Ukraine. This sculpture features a boot with the head of a bear — Russia’s state animal — encroaching on a nightingale, Ukraine’s state bird. “That’s my talking about how Russia is devouring this little baby bird,” she said.
A career with the vastness and breadth of Nancy Schön’s has given artists more than a few keen insights into pursuing dreams. She has been a mentor to many. When it comes to sculpting her own path, she says, “When you see the brass ring, grab it. Even if it’s totally different from anything you’ve ever thought of, do it.”
Noa Kelmer-Racin is a Fig City News intern and a rising sophomore at Princeton.
