Sculptor finds freedom, chance to pursue her passion

Ignoring family’s advice
to choose practical career proved wise decision
By Joyce Blay
Staff Writer

VERONICA YANKOWSKI Silhouetted by sunshine, Mira Welnowska works in the art studio of her Jackson home.

Mira Welnowska is a sculptor, but her greatest work does not reside in a museum or a gallery. As intricate and detailed as the pieces she molds, the life she has built for herself is no less an accomplishment.

A resident of Jackson for the past 11 years, the tall, slender blonde with a luminescent smile welcomes a visitor to the comfortable home she shares with her daughter, Helen, and son, Peter, both 24, on a sunny but cold Thursday in February. A black and white cat rubs against her leg, purring as she bends down to stroke its back.

Amid the many completed works and those in progress that surround her living room and dining room area, Welnowska, 49, is mistress of all she surveys. But when she was growing up in communist Poland, it was the government that surveyed her.

Originally from Wroclaw, a university town in a corner of southwest Poland, near the Czechoslovakian and West German border, Welnowska grew to womanhood in the satellite of the former Soviet Union. Yet even under so harsh a regime, her career options were no less limited than they would have been in a democracy.

With a deft touch, Mira Welnowska creates a sculpture she calls “Spanish Dancer.”

"Growing up in Poland, I used to go to the park with a girlfriend to paint watercolor scenes," she said. "My father said that I would be a starving artist if I didn’t find a different line of work."

Welnowska gets up from her couch to show her visitor a painting she made from those days. It is a whimsical picture of a child’s birthday party in a park. The lighthearted scene is a reflection of a time and a place long since gone, but as an expression of her artistic ambitions, it was a snapshot of a career in the making.

After a few moments, Welnowska reluctantly put the artwork back, but the memories came flooding back to her as she continued her story of fealty to the state and to her family’s wishes.

The dutiful girl obeyed her father and enrolled at technical school instead of art school. But her dream of being an artist never went away. Neither did her desire to achieve it somewhere else.

"I traveled a lot around Europe as a teenager," said Welnowska. "Some people were getting passports. It was a game of chance. My girlfriend didn’t get one; I did."

Her passport was not just an entrée to travel and adventure, it was a chance for freedom and a new life.

"I went out and came back, so the authorities trusted me with a passport, but one day I just didn’t come back," said Welnowska. "I got through U.S. customs as a refugee from Western Germany."

Welnowska did not have to worry about how she would support herself either. Her father’s advice proved to be the right career choice at that time.

"When I got to the United States in 1977, I continued to work in computers as a programmer," said Welnowska. "I got my citizenship in 1982."

She also found a husband. Thomas was a fellow immigrant from Poland who had arrived there two years before Welnowska. It was a whirlwind romance, and the two married the same year they had met. Just as quickly, their life together began to fall apart.

"He was doing odd jobs, working in restaurants and driving a taxi," said Welnowska. "It happened too fast, and it didn’t work from the beginning."

They got divorced in 1985, seven years later. The marriage didn’t endure, but Welnowska discovered an old love that would soon replace the one she had just shed.

"After the divorce, I bought land in the Poconos and I had a house built on it in a secluded area," said Welnowska. "From there, you could see New Jersey and Pennsylvania. It was so inspiring that I felt moved to reach for my paints after all those years since I had abandoned a career in art to take my father’s advice."

The pastoral stillness of the mountains and forest glade was a far cry from the noise and bustle she had left behind in the urban canyons of Manhattan, Astoria, Queens, and Wroclaw, Poland. But it was a welcome one. Welnowska whiled away the hours in her new home by capturing its surrounding beauty on canvas. But even her self-imposed solitude became too much to bear, and the young woman and her children looked to the east for a new home. "I stayed there three years before moving to Jackson in 1992," said Welnowska. "I wanted to again be close to New York City, but still be close to nature."

Welnowska conceded that Jackson was more suburban than were the Pocono Mountains, but she found her adopted town to have a special charm all its own.

"We didn’t know Jackson would become so built up since moving there, but it still retains a very rural character that we all still love," said Welnowska.

Welnowska also continued to explore her long since forgotten roots in art. Sculpting eventually became the final, most challenging stage in her artistic development.

"First I worked in wet clay, but since it has to be kept moist and covered with a damp cloth, it became a hassle to remove it when I wanted to look at the piece to see where I wanted to go with it," said Welnowska. "The plasteline is never dry, and it always stays moist and workable. I’ve been working with it the last four years."

When her plasteline pieces are complete, Welnowska drives into New York City to have them cast at the foundry there. After being asked by her visitor if the sculptures weren’t more susceptible to damage while being transported since they weren’t dry, Welnowska laughed heartily and flashed a knowing smile.

"That’s why I always bring my tools with me," she said.

Welnowska has exhibited extensively. She is a member of the Sculptors’ Association of New Jersey. Her work can currently be viewed until March 18 at the Donald B. Palmer Museum at Springfield Library, (973) 376-4930, and until March 21 at the Salmagundi Club in New York City, (212) 255-7740.

She will also be teaching a six-week sculpture class at the Ocean County Artists Guild in Island Heights, beginning March 16.

For further information, contact the Guild at (732) 270-3111 or Welnowska at (732) 928-8265.