Saint John Times Globe Monday, July 22, 1996

A Rothesay artist's sculpture honouring the famed Paris Crew will include stone carvings of images drawn by area children

By: Sandra Davis

Times Globe staff writer

To artist Marlene Hilton-Moore simple is beautiful. That's why she asked students to help her with a sculpture she's creating to mark next month's 125th anniversary of the Paris Crew's famous race at Renforth.

As she met the children last week on the future site of the artwork, directly across from Riverside Golf and Country Club on the Kennebecasis River - the halfway point of the race - Ms. Hilton-Moore infected the youngsters and their parents with her enthusiasm.

The youngster's drawings will be carved in stone at the base of a 20-foot bronze image of the Paris Crew's racing shell, scheduled to be unveiled August 24th, when the annual Renforth Regatta commemorates the race. The stone holding the carvings has 50 running feet of surface and stands six feet high.

"Children's picture language is true; it's very unconscious," she told the group as she excitedly thumbed through the drawings.

"Young children tend to draw very symbolically. That's a very beautiful symbol of a fish, a very beautiful symbol of a duck and of a boat. It's symbols that I really wanted to have on the stone. And I can't get them, really, from anybody but children."

Craig Lang's picture of a wharf, diving board, raft and the beach struck a chord with the artist. "this was a huge part of my life, when I grew up here," said Ms. Hilton-Moore, who spent her teen-age years in East Riverside, not far from the sculpture site.

Craig is one of the nine children from Rothesay Park and Kennebecasis Park elementary schools whose work was chosen from 180 submissions -based on the themes of home, school, play and rowing - the last category was added at the end because there were so many submissions. "There were so many delightful rowing drawings. The river is such a component of the community, that obviously (from the drawings) it's there for the children too."

To Megan Pasqualetto, home seems to be synonymous with the comfort of cats and clocks. "I took your people out," the artist told the youngster, "Because they were too hard to carve. Some things are really hard to carve.

"I thought the cats were wonderful but I had to make them a little bit bigger because the men at the carving place said 'too small, can't carve that.' So I made the bowl of fruit bigger and your cats bigger."

But Megan said she didn't mind that one bit. "It didn't matter," said the nine-year-old student of Rothesay Park. "I drew a kitchen table with fruit, cats under the table and a clock over the table.

"Our teacher told us this woman was carving pictures into the sculpture."

Kayla Reese, 6, chose to draw a mother and three little ducks, simply because she likes them. "When one looks at that, one understands that a duck has webbed feet. And how better could you symbolize the webbed feet? I think it's stunning," said Ms. Hilton-Moore.

"And the fish are very fine," she said of Blake Fairweather's drawing. "And the bird," done by Chris Morehouse. "then there's a sailboat, that's always out there," she said of the work of Kate Day,6, of Rothesay Park School.

"I drew a boat because the teacher wanted us to draw a boat and a statue and the statue didn't get in probably because it was too big," guesses Kate.

"I like boats. I'm gonna go in kayaking, like my sister is."

Meredith Evans, 7, of Kennebecasis Park elementary drew a schoolyard. "She's incorporated symbols of a hopscotch, the symbol of play." Said Ms. Hilton-Moore. "It's the symbol of every school yard in Canada.

Other students whose artwork was chosen include Meaghan McIntyre of Rothesay Park School, who drew a goose and deer, and Kristen Flood of Rothesay Park.

Ms. Hilton-Moore says the drawings will be important to the community down the road. "What the children's drawings do, is symbolize what our community means. They're the fabric, they're the future.

"These symbols speak about our cultural life, our geography, our history, our nationality and our daily life," said the artist.

In addition to the children's drawings, the stone will hold community logos, three-foot-high wildflowers, like the red-girdled bullrush and meadow rue, river life, a map of the river system and the original route of the great race.

Name and business logos of the work's benefactors will also be inscribed for a donation of $500.