Sean Kirst: For Arlene Abend, legendary Syracuse artist, a daughter’s quest to create a living memorial

Excerpt from Central Current

Great art is so often found behind red velvet ropes, fragile artifacts from another time that are too delicate to handle. For children, said Marguerite Mitchell, that frequent reality is defined by words they begin hearing almost as soon as they are mobile.

Look, but don’t touch.

Arlene Abend brought an entirely different ethic to her lessons at the Redhouse Arts Center, Mitchell said. For years, the great Syracuse sculptor was a dynamic instructor of children’s art classes. Mitchell, the organization’s director of education, said Arlene’s whole emphasis with kids was far more direct and intimate than simply teaching about works of art, as faraway examples.

Her lessons involved the knowledge that changed her own life, the transformative power of what those girls and boys could do with their own hands.

That message — a statement about her impact on the future, rather than a sad farewell — will be at the heart of a community memorial Wednesday for Arlene, who died last autumn.

“She was a ball of energy,” said Mitchell, who joined Redhouse executive director Franklin Fry in recalling how Arlene was a front row regular at every theatrical production held in the place. Her driving motivation with children was to “put a fire under them,” Mitchell said.

Arlene was particularly focused on helping them to “dream big,” inviting them to ask the same question every day that had changed her own life:

What if?

It was a question she brought with particular empathy to young women and girls, Mitchell said. Roughly 60 years ago, Arlene — who stood 5-foot-2 — embraced welding as a means of creating her art at a time when few women were working with a torch and heavy metals.