Time and weather can take a toll on wooden sculptures. The “Love Knot,” which stood at the corner of Market and Main streets in the Village of Saugerties has finally yielded to ten years of the effects and has been taken down, sculptor Ze’ev Willy Neumann, its creator, said recently.
An identical Love Knot, still on display in Woodstock, has weathered less and may have a year or two more in it, Neumann said, but it too will succumb to the pressures of weather fairly soon.
The solution is to have the sculptures cast in fiberglass, which will be far less vulnerable to weathering. The Saugerties Love Knot has been sent to a manufacturer to have a mold made and to cast the sculpture in fiberglass. While he declined to give the exact price for the mold, he said it will be very expensive, but once it is made, copies of the Love Knot sculpture will be inexpensive to produce.
The two sculptures combine the images of a heart and an infinity symbol, with a teardrop in the center of the heart. Neumann has said the combination works well, expressing both the enduring nature of love and the sadness that may go with it.
“I want people to know the Love Knot is not gone; it is at the foundry, where a duplicate in a more lasting material will be created and returned to Saugerties.
Neumann’s large sculptures — some monumental — are on display at galleries around the Hudson Valley. Over the past few years, he has worked in paint on canvas, as he no longer has his large workshop and display venue on First and Livingston streets, which held his many large works. But he will be working full time to finding a sponsor or sponsors to have a mold of the Love Knot sculpture made so it can be produced at a reasonable cost in fiberglass.
Neumann’s work has graced the Saugerties Farmers’ Market, various fairs, activities and galleries in the town and at the Saugerties waterfront, where one of his picture frames, which encourages viewers to see the ever-changing landscape as art, as well as his sculpture of a water chestnut, an invasive species in the Esopus Creek off the Saugerties beach, can be seen.
Now living in a small apartment in The Mill in Saugerties, Neumann said he will be focusing on finding funding for the reproduction of his Love Knots. He hopes to have one installed in every Ulster County town once a mold is created and the fiberglass knots can be produced at a reasonable cost.
For more information or to offer funding, email zwilly10024@yahoo.com.
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