Since February is Black History Month, Ed and I have been photographing subjects that help us think about this aspect of Boston's past. The sculpture of slave and poet Phillis Wheatley on the Boston Women's Memorial has long been one of my favorite photographic models. (Click on the photo for a larger view.)
At the dedication ceremony, memorial sculptor Meredith Bergmann said,
“External, legal freedom was denied to Phillis Wheatley. But she sought the inner freedom that enabled her to write and here she makes her pedestal a desk.”
I've read Bergmann's proposal for the memorial so I know how much thought she put into the smallest details of this artwork. But, I wonder if she considered how serene Phillis would seem with snowdrifts wrapping her and her desk? Did she plan for the light to outline this young face against the misty haze of winter trees?
Planned or not, the result can be stunning in the right light and, on one of our rare partly sunny days last week, I found that light.
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Words: Penny Cherubino
Photography: © 2015 Penny Cherubino
(American poet 1894-1962)