Christine Knoblauch creates tribute to Newtown victims

Christine Knoblauch had to reach out. She had to do something.

After she learned of the awful killings in December 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, the sculptor was overcome with a desire to honor the dead and show her support to those they left behind.

But the project that evolved — the creation of a large and wonderful stainless steel heart that will be placed in an animal sanctuary in memory of 6-year-old Catherine Violet Hubbard, one of the victims — became more than just an expression of her concern.

"Whole families came in to help," she says, remembering the process that turned the heart project into a community project. "We did this as a gift from Rochester, from all of us to Newtown."

Kate Lipsky of Rochester, who, like Knoblauch is a member of DRAW, an artist's group, sees the project as a triumph.

"It shows that out of horrible tragedy and sadness, love can come," she says. "In our mourning, we can create something beautiful."

The finished work is on display now in the Rochester studio Knoblauch shares with her husband, the metal sculptor Paul Knoblauch.

The heart is large, 48 inches tall and 44 inches at its widest point.

Seemingly held together by vertical steel veins or arteries, it has openings of different shapes that reveal the heart's interior and allow a light to shine out.

As they get closer to the heart, viewers will see the names of the 26 people (20 of them schoolchildren) killed by Adam Lanza in his rampage.

And as they get even closer and peer into the heart, they will see the names of the Rochester-area families who stamped the names of the victims on one side of the pieces and their own names and sometimes a message on the other.

Other area artists, such as Henry Avignon, have created projects to honor the victims as gifts to Newtown. This project, though, also has the participation of the area families.

"They pounded with a 30-pound brass mallet, one letter at a time," Christine Knoblauch says. "It was almost ceremonial. People were getting choked up, because the children were so precious."

The names are all the more poignant because the letters are not perfectly spaced, showing that the people who made them were new to the process.

"You can see that real people did them," Knoblauch says, pointing to one first name that has a backwards "c" in "Jessica."

Catherine Hubbard's name is at the top of the heart in honor of her spirit and her connection to this area, put there by her relatives from Pittsford who came into the studio and took part in the project, working with many people they had never met.

"It was a little bit of healing to say we're all doing this together," says Dan Sullivan, whose sister, Jennifer Hubbard, is Catherine's mother.

Dan and his wife, Kelly McCormick-Sullivan, have three children, Jack, 10, Maeve, 8, and Brynn, 5. They have been active in efforts to honor the lives of those lost at Newtown.

Soon after the tragedy at Sandy Hook, Jack, then 9, founded Catherine's Peace Team, a group dedicated to raising funds here for the animal sanctuary that will honor his cousin, a redheaded first-grader who had a strong love of animals.

"She would ride her bike full speed to see the new cat at the bus stop," says her biography on the Catherine Violet Hubbard Foundation website. "She'd run to the top of the yard to see the dogs being walked down the street. She would stroll through the barn to gently rub the nose of each horse reaching out of its stall."

Land for the sanctuary — 34 acres — has been obtained, and fundraising is well underway. Of the $800,000 raised so far, more than $100,000 has come from the Rochester area, Dan Sullivan says.

He sees the outpouring of support as an example of the spirit of generosity here.

"People are doing this to help fulfill a dream for a child they never met," he says.

When it is completed, perhaps by 2016, the sanctuary will have a shelter and adoption center for cats and dogs, as well as a veterinarian clinic and other facilities. It will also be a refuge for farm animals, and it will offer educational programs.

Memmott is retired senior editor of the Democrat and Chronicle and a current columnist.

Weblinks:

Catherine Violet Hubbard Foundation: cvhfoundation.org

This has a link to the Catherine's Peace Team page.

There is also a Catherine's Peace Team Facebook page that you can get by doing a Facebook search.