Jim in a personal conversation with Terri Boor  learned in addition to that 
stated in the article that:  "Terri was born Teresina Francesca Mazzara 
in Utica NY. Her parents came here from Sicily.  She began studying art 
in 1950 in Utica, when she went to the Munson-Williams-Proctor Art 
Museum Utica, where "they gave me a lump of clay and told me to work 
on that. That was when I met Henry DiSpirito" She minimizes her own 
accomplishments and evidences great pride sisters and brother all 
achieved very high status in their careers. She is also EXTREMELY proud 
of her Italian heritage.  She hopes that the bust of Garibaldi she is currently 
working on will be acquired by an Italian-American organization.

[Professor Mancuso also takes more than a degree of pleasure in pointing 
out that Utica's Italian-American community seems to have produced 
a disproportionately high number of very accomplished achievers.  
He discusses the works of two Utica-connected people in the article 
he has put up on the Albany SOI site at the URL address:
<< http://www.capital.net/~soialban/utrevufr.html >>

Additionally, in another piece he discusses the work of the sculptor, 
Henry DiSpirito. Di Spirito was, himself, an immigrant stone cutter.  
He followed a remarkable course to become a noted sculptor.  
The short discussion of DiSpirito is found in the article at the URL address:
<< http://www.capital.net/~soialban/itamarts.html>>

Jim also states: "I had the privilege of working with DiSpirito's three 
daughters to compose an article about this esteemed sculptor, and the 
article was published in NIAF's AMBASSADOR MAGAZINE.

To my great pleasure, I was informed by Paul D'Ambrosio that the New 
York State Fenimore Art Museum will mount a showing of DiSpirito's 
work.  The show will be put up early in the year 2002."]
==========================================================
SCULPTER'S WORK SHAPES THE FUTURE
 
Colonie -- College will name new studio after Terri Boor, 
its artist-in-residence for 18 years

By Alan Wechsler, Staff Writer 
First published: Saturday, December 29, 2001 
Albany Times-Union

"They're naming a building after me,'' Terri Boor says. "The Boor Sculpture 
Studio. I won't tell you the price.'' 

Terri Boor is in her element. She's in her house, entertaining a guest and 
showing off her various sculptures. They fill the room -- busts, full-body 
nudes, some evoking poses that don't seem possible in real life. Some are 
mantle size, others sit on the floor or on tables. Boor, at 82 years old, has 
been sculpting for a long, long time, and she shows no sign of slowing down.

For 18 years, Boor has been artist-in-residence at the University at Albany 
and has donated a small percentage of the cost of the new $3.8-million studio 
on the east side of campus that the school has decided to name after her.

When completed in 2002, the Boor Sculpture Studio will be a one-story, 
20,000-square-foot building that will house studios in sculpture and 
three-dimensional art, along with classrooms for graduate and undergraduate 
students.

It is not just her artwork that makes Boor a tantalizing study. It is her 
stories, of meeting royalty and Army generals, of decoding enemy messages in 
World War II, of catching the eye of the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Enrico 
Fermi in Honolulu during an Army dance after the war.

Good luck getting the details, though.

"Won't people think I'm bragging?'' she asks.

"Don't print that,'' she says.

"You can't put that in. My relatives will kill me.''

Suffice it to say that Boor has led a colorful life.

She was born in Utica. She got her interest in working with her hands from 
her father's work in the construction business, along with a rich Italian 
heritage that brought her into contact with some of the world's most talented 
sculptors. She began studying art in 1950 in Utica, and continues to work 
with other artists to this day.

She was married in 1953 to Edward Milan Boor and came to Albany. Edward 
worked for the state, eventually becoming the director of the Department of 
Motor Vehicles. When he died in 1978, she found herself feeling lonely 
working at her home studio. So she came to UAlbany.

Boor has chosen a genre that is as difficult physically as it is mentally. 
Rock sculpting, whether marble or soapstone or alabaster, requires incredible 
patience, an understanding of how the rock reacts to even the tiniest impact 
and the knowledge that one wrong move can ruin months of work. Frustration is 
a daily occurrence. But there are rewards.

"Once you get the pleasure of working with (stone) it kind of sticks with 
you,'' says Baris Karayazgan, a 28-year-old graduate student from Turkey who 
has been helping Boor on her sculptures. "Because the process is so long it's 
sometimes like a meditation.''

Karayazgan, more familiar with the use of power tools, helps Boor by cutting 
off the excess stone when she begins a project. From those oblique shapes, 
Boor still needs hundreds of hours of work with a diamond-tipped grinder or 
hand tools to finish her projects.

"For a lady that old, she's doing a great job,'' Karayazgan said. "I'm not 
teaching her -- she knows what she is doing.''

Perhaps Boor's most public work is a piece entitled "Denial,'' located at the 
entrance to the UAlbany Performing Arts Center. It's a sphere-like work 
depicting a woman intertwined with a man. The man is sitting with his head 
against his knee, with only his hair visible. The woman faces outward, 
wrapped around the man, frowning. It's a puzzle to the eye -- is that arm his 
or hers? -- as well as an evocative pose.

Today she's working on a 32-inch marble sword inspired by the famous Italian 
general Giuseppe Garibaldi, whom she says her grandfather met.

"I'm working all the time,'' she says. "I go to the studio and come back 
covered in marble dust.'' 

http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyKey=73727&category=Y