Nearly 90, and a work of Art
Margaret Ricciardi opens mixed-media exhibition of her paintings and sculpture this weekend at CSI

Staten Island Advance
Friday, March 5, 2004

As a girl growing up in Brooklyn, Margaret Ricciardi liked to draw.

But it wasn't until some 60 years later, after she decided to pursue a bachelor's degree at the College of Staten Island, that she enrolled in an art class. And then only because she needed to take an elective.

Now, some 23 years later, Maggy, as she's known in the painter's community at CSI, will launch a one-woman show this weekend -- her first mixed-media exhibition -- of paintings and sculpture.

What better way to mark her birthday on Monday -- her 90th birthday.

"I said to my family, 'No party!'" said Mrs. Ricciardi, as we sat in the sunny kitchen of her Ward Hill home earlier this week. "I had a party when I was 80. But I thought, if I could have a show and invite everyone who has been asking me about my artwork, that would be wonderful. This is like a dream come true."

The show, which opens tomorrow in CSI's Center for the Arts, Gallery 118 (1P), and runs through March 18, with a reception Sunday from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m., is not Mrs. Ricciardi's first.

NUMBER OF EXHIBITIONS

In 1990, she held a private exhibition of her oil paintings. Five years later, the Staten Island Institute of Art hosted a second show, and in 1999 she showed her work again, at Snug Harbor. Her new show will feature both her oil paintings and her sculpture.

Her magnificent "Winter Sky," a 68-by-56 inch oil on canvas that took a semester to complete -- and which Mrs. Ricciardi refers to as "my prize" -- will be among her impressionist paintings on display, along with several of her abstract sculptures in marble, bronze and copper.

Mrs. Ricciardi has long since earned her degree from CSI, but that hasn't stopped her from continuing to take classes in painting and sculpture two days a week at the college.

Nor has her failing eyesight slowed her down much.

"They tell me I'm painting better because I'm not hung up on detail," said Mrs. Ricciardi with a laugh. "I don't know whether to be flattered or insulted. I guess there is some truth to it. I guess you are freer. But I do have to stand five or six inches from a painting."

"Maggy is an inspiration to all of us," said Professor Patricia Passlof, who has worked with Mrs. Ricciardi for more than two decades. "As a painter, she has wonderful taste, talent and true grit. She is very demanding of herself; she has very high standards."

"She has done some remarkable pieces," added Professor Ralph Martel, a sculptor with whom Mrs. Ricciardi has studied for 20 years. "For one piece she used a 200-pound piece of Brazilian soapstone, which she ordered herself. We have power tools in the studio and she looked like Rosie the Riveter using them."

"She has been remarkable for her persistence," added Martel, noting Mrs. Ricciardi's eyesight. "It hasn't hurt her sculpture; she can feel it."

Mrs. Ricciardi's second career as an artist blossomed after the unexpected death of her beloved husband, Frank, in 1983. Together the two had run Ricciardi's Shoe Service in the St. George Ferry Terminal for many years, with Mrs. Ricciardi serving as the store's buyer of footwear and accessories. The couple had two daughters.

Mrs. Ricciardi had begun to take classes at CSI prior to her husband's death, and decided to pursue her degree in earnest when she found herself suddenly on her own. That lone art elective, and the encouragement she received from an early professor, was pivotal in her decision to devote herself to painting and sculpture.

"I like to work at the college, because working at home, you can't really concentrate," said Mrs. Ricciardi. "There are too many interruptions. The phone rings, the doorbell rings. Besides, I like getting the critiques from my professors, one on one. That's important to me. I can ask, 'What should I do?' 'Should I do more?'"

Her trips abroad, to Europe and China, the Caribbean and South America, have proven inspirational, Mrs. Ricciardi said. But so has simply gazing out the window of her studio on the CSI campus, hence "Hill," which adorns the cover of the show's brochure.

But perhaps nothing was as inspirational as the glorious six months she spent studying at the prestigious Lorenzo di Medici Institute in Florence, Italy, in 1988. Three years ago she returned for a month of additional training.

Still, the real inspiration comes from within.

"I feel so lucky," said Mrs. Ricciardi. "Some mornings it can be difficult to get out of bed. But I say, get up and get moving. Once you've had your breakfast, you get dressed. I get dressed every day, whether I'm going out or not. That's the incentive. Otherwise, you'd get yourself in a rut."

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