Article in Vogue

ITALIAN VOGUE (translation)

A dictionary called SHEILA FINN....

In Paris there lives an artist who translates sculpture into Music and Dance, creating true jewels of art.

One day, you find yourself having to write about Sheila Finn. You become anxious...there are many things you want to say all at the same time, and you don't know where to begin.

Her dynamism, her vitality, her big studio flooded with sunlight, and Mozart that she plays continually and her ideas, millions of ideas that become sculptures, jewelry, presences in movement that...fascinate...it starts as if she were playing a game. The small delicate figure of her daughter was her first sculpture. A subtle object, a fine delicate form, an affectionate game that becomes art. And the playfulness of her doing it is the sensation which is most striking. It seems that everything is easy and spontaneous for her and done with much happiness. Again I use the word "game," but understood as a defiance in life. Another important word is "joy," it indicates the vital desire in her of this encounter/clash with the human form, protagonist always of her sculptures. Forms of women--large--large and alive as real people. Others are tiny, minuscule statues in movement that enlace your fingers and wrists.

Continuing our dictionary, it is in developing the word "movement." Personnages, always in movement. I want to say much more than the representaton of movement. The movement in the real sense, in the soul of the thing. Sheila

Finn loves dance. She understands dance. I said before that she works listening to Mozart. By an extraordinary combination that arrives in the human spirit-- music, dance and sculpture unite to give life to her figures in movement. Elements of a great choreographer. Carolyn Carlson finds a great admirer and competitor.

I am undecided. I don't know if the word to use is "calm" or "patient." She works with such tiny instruments, I believe instruments of a dentist, to create her minuscule jewelry. "Patience" I don't bellieve is the word. It is a virtue that many have and does not apply to our case, as it is limiting. The right word is "calm." A quality that is born by the mastering of her trade, the fact that one has clear ideas, the consciousness of participating in a creative act, in the fullness of living.

And I would like to conclude my dictionary called Sheila Finn with the words "love" and art," which are after all the same thing and do not need an explanation.

CARLO J. GERARD