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Peace and Justice

The sculpture "Peace and Justice" symbolizes the 50 year passionate effort for Peace and Justice that have been the hallmark of Soka Gakkai International  (SGI) in promoting racial equality. 

The sculpture responds to an incident observed by Daisaku Ikeda fifty years ago when an African American child was denied the opportunity to play ball with white children in Lincoln Park. The boys who posed for this sculpture are African American and Caucasian,  who live and play together on one block and attend school together.  They have grown up knowing a more peaceful and just world in no small part due to the efforts to promote justice by SGI. 

The bud of the lotus blossom, a symbol of enlightenment in Buddhist thought, can be found throughout the sculpture in repeated forms that become the image of these boys and in open space between their torsos.   I used the form of the lotus bud in the  calves and thighs and the incised lines on the ball or in full blossom reference in a  boy’s hair.  The lotus bud promises the blossom of this effort and these two boys lives now beginning at age seven with playing together.  The sculpture, "Peace and Justice" is a marker on the ‘history of the justice timeline’ for how far we have come in these 50 years promoting racial equality.  The reminder that our work is not done is represented by their budding youth as we imagine what their lives will become with this as their beginning. 

Peace Garden
Lincoln Park Buena and Lake Shore Drive
Chicago, Illinois

Just Plain Hardworking

A multimedia exhibition consisting of Fondu cement and bronze sculptures, paintings, essays and photographs portraying ten Chicagoans of various neighborhoods who have made a difference.

Ongoing

Egan Urban Center
DePaul University
DePaul Center
1 East Jackson Boulevard
Chicago, Illinois
(312)362-6783



St. Patrick Church

On March 22, 1998 at the 11:30 Mass Cardinal George dedicated the newly constructed St. Patrick Church. Hands have been a part of my artwork for a long time and became the main statement in the works I am creating for the new St. Patrick Church. A sculpture of six foot high hands formed in clay and cast in Fondu concrete hold the tabernacle which is the color of the earth in Lake Forest. These hands are offering gifts. In the fourteen Fondu stations, Jesus takes up his burden and bears it—the Cross. Hands are prominent in each station to give insight into what he is experiencing in the Way of the Cross: In the Holy Family sculpture which is now taking form adolescent Jesus looks into the palms of his hands as if he knows his future. He is encouraged with his father's supportive hand on the shoulder and strengthened by his mother and fathers combined hand symbolizing their spirit. Also I designed the St. Patrick's Celtic Cross which combines the symbolic knotted pattern from the Kells Bible and a Celtic Cross carved in Oak. For three years Margot has explored and interpreted her Irish Catholic cultural heritage while creating artwork for the newly constructed St. Patrick Church in Lake Forest,IL. Large scale sculptures include a twice life size Holy Family with Jesus as an adolescent entering his life's work, a granite water fall Font, a six foot set of hands Offering the loaf shaped Tabernacle, a stenciled mural based on the Breastplate of St. Patrick, a stain glass Ambry, a Celtic Cross and a Creche scene, and 14 Stations of the Cross.

Ongoing

St. Patrick Church
991 S. Waukegan Road
Lake Forest, Illinois



Elizabeth F. Cheney Mansion
220 N. Euclid Avenue
Oak Park, Illinois



Ecosystem Number 1
Lincoln Park Community Art Initiative
Lincoln Park, Illinois
May 2007-2008


The sun offers energy by the solar panel that pumps water up which is distributed by the wind turning the weather vane, human dancers, on top. Viewers add water, the wind distributes the water which is pumped by the sun creating a system for the sedum to thrive. If any one of these contributors, sun, wind, rain and humans don't contribute, the sedum perishes.



"Hope" "Peace" "Wonder" - Beye School
Oak Park, Illinois

Three 2nd grade Art Foundation Art Start classes collaborated to create one sculpture each for permanent installation at their grade school. The students learned various forms of sculpting individually, then created one concept and sculpture together.



"Cuddling Intelligence"

170 Middle school students collaborated on creating the concepts, design and sewing twelve five foot soft sculptures symbolizing Howard Gardener's theory of Multiple Intelligences. The students identified the intelligence they were interested in, created an individual symbol which was incorporated into the groups sculpture that now hangs in Julian's four story atrium.



Current Exhibitions
LUMA Loyola University,
820 N. Michigan Ave
Chicago, Illinois

Peace and Justice

Ecosystem Number 1




Cheney Mansion




Beye School: Hope


Beye School: Peace

Beye School: Wonder