Gallery Is Dedicated To 98-Year-Old Sculptor
By Julie Rasicot
Special to the Washington Post
Thursday, February 28, 2008
For Sarah Silberman, sculpting is a passion that she can't give up.
Even at 98, with arthritis hobbling her joints, the Silver Spring artist still enjoys working with clay to make small duplicates of some of the hundreds of works she has created since she first studied sculpture in the 1920s.
"You feel it. It becomes a part of you, an extension of you," Silberman said, shortly after her lifelong commitment to sculpture was celebrated last week with Montgomery College's dedication of the Sarah Silberman Art Gallery on its Rockville campus.
More than 75 relatives, friends, faculty, college officials and students gathered for the gallery's dedication, which also honored Silberman's role as mentor and unofficial artist in residence during the 25 years she took art classes at the community college.
"She has been an inspiration to faculty and students alike," Kathleen H. McCrohan, chairman of the art department at the Rockville campus, told the crowd. "She has taught us the delight of art. That delight will continue as long as we have students coming here."
Silberman donated $500,000 to renovate the second-floor gallery from a dull room with gray carpeting on the walls into a modern space with blond flooring, white walls and new lighting. Her donation also paid for new seating and display cases on the first two floors of the building. More than 30 pieces of Silberman's work are on display.
The sculptor, who has lost most of her hearing, also had anonymously endowed scholarships in ceramics and sculpture over the years. Two students, who didn't learn until recently that their scholarships were funded by Silberman, said the funding enabled them to pursue their artistic interests.
Sophia A. Angelakis, 23, of Washington said her gratitude to Silberman goes beyond the support provided by the scholarship.
"It really gave me the confidence to pursue what I love," she said. "It felt so good that there were people out there willing to help others explore our passion."
Silberman had long been a fixture in the art department on the Rockville campus, where she started taking classes at age 71 and continued until she was 95, taking or auditing more than 170 classes in several mediums, according to school officials.
Bill Silberman said his mother began attending classes "partly to get away from her children and grandchildren. She escaped to a place where they wouldn't bother her so much. Essentially, she married this place," he said of Silberman, whose husband, Dave, a fur business owner, died in 1978.
The gallery dedication was the latest honor the college had bestowed upon the sculptor, who was classically trained at two nationally known art schools and won several awards when she was younger. Silberman publicly exhibited her work in Washington and other cities until 1950, and then spent the next 30 years working in her home studio.
In 2004, the college held a 75-year retrospective of her work in the gallery that now bears her name. Silberman also was honored with an Outstanding Alumni Award that year for her lifelong commitment to learning. Additionally, the college published a biography of her artistic life by former adjunct professor John Beshoar and, in 2006, awarded Silberman an honorary associate's degree.
Beshoar first met Silberman in a ceramics class in 1995 and offered to photograph her works. "About 6 1/2 years later, she said yes," said Beshoar, who co-curated her solo exhibition and used his photographs to illustrate the biography, "The Genius of Sarah Silberman: A Lifetime Student of Sculpture."
Beshoar said he first became aware of the immensity of Silberman's talent a few years ago, when she came into class and began working a lump of clay.
"Within minutes, she had put up three small sculptures. You could see the physicality," he said. "This is when I knew she was a genius. I had never seen her do this until that day."
For Silberman, perseverance was key.
"The main thing is to keep doing it. No matter what you are, where you are, keep doing it," she said. "Stick with it."
During the dedication, the college's vice president of institutional advancement, David M. Sears, presented Silberman with a certificate granting her membership in the 1946 Society of Montgomery College, which supports the college.
"Her talent and timeless structures brought beauty to our community," Sears said before presenting the certificate to Silberman, who had suffered a mild heart attack three days before and was in a wheelchair.
Wearing a jaunty black beret, Silberman gazed at the crowd of well-wishers. Although she was unable to hear Sears's words, she wanted the crowd to know that the admiration was mutual. "We mustn't forget Montgomery College, the center of all our lives," she said.
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