rome — earth dot sky

Filmmaker and Installation Artist Roberto Mighty, MFA, is America’s first cemetery Artist-in-Residence, and the inaugural resident artist at Mount Auburn Cemetery, a National Historic Landmark and America’s first garden cemetery. His 'earth.sky' installation features films and multimedia in an immersive, computer controlled, multi projector traveling exhibit now available for museums worldwide. earth.sky “An American In Rome” Mary Edmonia Lewis (1844-1907) Note: Ms. Lewis is not interred at Mt Auburn. Her only funerary statue, Hygeia, commissioned by physician Harriot Kezia Hunt, is adjacent to Hunt’s grave. Mary Edmonia Lewis (ca. 1844 – 1907) was an American sculptor who worked for most of her career in Rome, Italy. She is the first woman of African-American and Native American heritage to achieve international fame and recognition as a sculptor in the fine arts world. Her work is known for incorporating themes relating to black and American Indian people into Neoclassical style sculpture.* Harriot Kezia Hunt (1805-1875) was a pioneer female physician and reformer involved in the temperance and anti-tobacco movements. Hunt studied privately and developed a successful practice. In 1870, Hunt commissioned a statue of Hygeia, the Greek goddess of health and hygiene, to be erected on her family lot in Mount Auburn Cemetery. Hunt chose Edmonia Lewis to create her memorial. ** Credits Voice of Edmonia Lewis: Dayenne C. Walters Voices of Lydia Maria Child and Anna Quincy Waterston: Souther Voices of Thomas Jefferson, Reporters and F. Bremer: Roberto Mighty Stone Sculptors: Fern Cunningham-Terry and Karen Eutemey Recorded and Edited at Celestial Media Studios, Boston Historical Consultant: Marilyn Richardson Image and Text Sources Yale Law School Lillian Goldman Law Library The Avalon Project Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery Photographer: Henry Rocher ca 1870 Poem excerpt from "Edmonia Lewis" Anna Quincy Waterston, 1864 U.S. National Library of Medicine, Digital Collections National Institutes of Health, Health & Human Services Glances and Glimpses, or, Fifty years social, including twenty years professional life. Harriot Kezia Hunt, 1856 The Liberator: A Chat with the Editor of The Standard, Lydia Maria Child Jan. 20, 1865 The Boston Atheneum Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Historical Society of Forest Park, Illinois Archives of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia The Newark Museum “Edmonia Lewis and the Boston of Italy” Marilyn Richardson, Independent Paper, Florence, Italy Cleveland Museum of Art Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College Cincinnati Art Museum Story Research Antiques & Fine Art Hiawatha In Rome: Edmonia Lewis and Figures from Longfellow Marilyn Richardson Child of the Fire: Mary Edmonia Lewis And the Problem of Art History’s Black and Indian Subject Kirsten Pai Buick The Indomitable Spirit of Edmonia Lewis A Narrative Biography by Harry Henderson and Albert Henderson The LGBT Institute: Edmonia Lewis Yale National Initiative Making Art Against the Odds: The Triumph of Edmonia Lewis by Kimberly Towne Sotheby’s: New Edmonia Lewis Record Set by Marilyn Richardson Smithsonian American Art Museum Renwick Gallery Silent City on a Hill: Landscapes of Memory and Boston’s Mount Auburn Cemetery by Blanche Linden-Ward Music Ludwig Van Beethoven: Sinfonia No. 5 by Kevin MacLeod Battle Hymn of The Republic Music: William Steffe by US Air Force Band Sad Mess by Ketsa *Wikipedia **African-American Heritage Trail: Hygeia by Edmonia Lewis. Mount Auburn Cemetery Guide Funding for this project A. J. & M. D. Ruggiero Memorial Trust Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery Cambridge Arts Council Preservation Fund for Eastern Massachusetts of The National Trust for Historic Preservation Mass Humanities Watertown Cultural Council ©2016 Roberto Mighty earthdotsky.com - all rights reserved -

Sculptor Fern Cunningham-Terry, creator of monumental public sculptures comments on social issues behind the work of 19th-century sculptor Mary Edmonia Lewis. Both hold many public and private commissions. Both are of African-American and Native-American descent, and this unique heritage figures in their work. Film by Roberto Mighty as part of his artist residency at Mount Auburn Cemetery, 2014-2016.

Sculptor Fern Cunningham-Terry, creator of monumental public sculptures, comments on social issues behind the works of 19th-century sculptor Mary Edmonia Lewis. Both hold/held many public and private commissions. Both are of African-American and Native-American descent and this unique heritage figures in their sculptures - in different ways. Film by Roberto Mighty as part of his artist residency Online Exhibit at Mount Auburn Cemetery, 2014-2016.

An American In Rome

Mary Edmonia Lewis (ca. 1844 – 1907) was an American sculptor who worked for most of her career in Rome, Italy. She is the first woman of African-American and Native American heritage to achieve international fame and recognition as a sculptor in the fine arts world.

Lewis overcame incredible odds to become a celebrated international artist between the Civil War and the turn of the century.

On Monday, Feb 1st, Google honored Lewis with a “Google Doodle” homepage illustration.

“Hygeia”, Lewis’ only extant work of funerary sculpture, is at Mount Auburn Cemetery, a National Historic Landmark in Cambridge, MA.

Thanks to Meg Winslow, Curator of Historical Collections and Jenny Gilbert, Director of Institutional Advancement at Mount Auburn Cemetery for sharing their enthusiasm about Edmonia Lewis. Over two years, they relentlessly recommended that I include a piece about her and "Hygeia" in my earth.sky film/video installation. They also arranged for me to meet Lewis Scholar Marilyn Richardson. Marilyn generously shared with me her decades of research and discovery about Lewis.

Behind the scenes: Voice Actor Dayenne C. Walters as Edmonia Lewis

Behind the scenes: Voice Actor Souther as Lydia Maria Child

Behind the scenes: Sculptors Fern Cunningham-Terry and Karen Eutemey were Lewis' dreamlike "hands" in this film.

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Artist Statement

Mary Edmonia Lewis’ life was stranger than fiction. Its improbable twists and turns led me to months of anguish around how to tell even a small part of her story in this medium...within a few minutes.

A towering figure among nineteenth century American and European artists, her narrative is mostly unknown in our time. She was brought to my attention by Mount Auburn staff members Meg Winslow and Jenny Gilbert, who were passionate about her history and how inspiring it could be to today’s audiences.

Lewis - who against all odds became an accomplished sculptor and inspirational figure for the post Civil War abolitionist movement - combined Native American, Caribbean and African-American heritage with European neoclassicism and Roman Catholic iconography - an original and uniquely American combination.

My work involved over a year of research; filming, photographing and recording sound around her funerary statue, “Hygeia”, over four seasons; researching and recording contemporary monologues from Lewis, Lydia Maria Child, Thomas Jefferson, Anna Maria Waterston and Frederika Bremer.

I am thankful for the opportunity to meet and be advised by Marilyn Richardson, the historian who found and authenticated Lewis’ greatest work, “The Death of Cleopatra” - and Lewis’ grave in England.

It was a pleasure working with Actors Dayenne Walters (Edmonia Lewis) and Souther (Lydia Maria Child) in their studio voice performances. I voiced Thomas Jefferson, contemporary reporters and officials, and a letter from activist Frederika Bremer to her friend, physician Harriot Kezia Hunt, a doctor interred at Mount Auburn who commissioned Lewis’ “Hygeia”. I also filmed sculptors Fern Cunningham-Terry and Karen Eutemey as Lewis' dreamlike 'artist hands'.

I am now developing a narrative feature film based on Edmonia Lewis' life and times.