Jenny Read

For Jenny Read, sculptor-- murdered and raped in her 
San Francisco studio in 1976. Her killer was not identified
and arrested until 2009.

Oh Jenny Read
In your young woman art dreams
You wrote accords:

         "To shape time
          By putting something personal
          Into space"

         "When I'm in the library
          With a book in front of me
          I do not see words
          But clay figures taking form"

         "I've done a wax model
          For another bronze woman..." 

         "Finally all my little bronzes
          Are patina polished
          And well mounted
          On walnut blocks"

Jettisoned sketchbooks,
Kodachrome slides,
Found curbside on trash night,
Bronze patina in flux,
Decades wrought between
Crime scene and touchstone,
--all inadequate artifacts--
Your sculptures stand even now,
Always alert for new pairs of eyes
Just like yours,
Wry,
Scintillate,
Imposing of love

         "I wish to create a sculpture
          That would last at least 100 years"


Laura Stickney 2018


Notes:

vintage photo of sculptor Jenny Read, c. 1975

quotations of Jenny Read journal entries from
Jenny Read, In Pursuit of Art and Life,
The Journals and Letters of a Young Sculptor
San Francisco 1970-1976, Antioch University 
with Celo Press, Burnsville, N.C., 1982

Trash & Treasure: The Rediscovered Life
of Jenny Read, Gordon Coates, San Francisco
Weekly, August 24, 2016