Keller inspires sculptor's work

The life of Helen Keller has inspired a Massachusetts sculptor to make a plaster bust in her honor and donate it to the very school Keller once attended.

It's also possible that a bust could make its way to Ivy Green, Keller's birthplace in Tuscumbia.

Daniel Altshuler is donating the bust to the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Mass.

"I just decided to do it on my own," Altshuler said. "That's what it came down to. I was so inspired by her.

"In learning about Ivy Green, in learning about Perkins School and about the museum at the school, it's a natural. They need to have one."

Perkins research librarian Jan Seymour-Ford said school officials and students alike were delighted to learn about the gift. "It's absolutely beautiful," she said.

Seymour-Ford said it's fitting to have the bust at the museum. After all, Keller was a student at Perkins from 1888 to 1892. Her mentor, Anne Sullivan, graduated from Perkins.

Seymour-Ford said the first person who was deaf and blind and graduated was a Perkins student, and that was about 50 years before Keller, so the school has a rich history.

Altshuler made a bronze bust and lent it for the museum's opening four years ago. That helped spur his interest in Keller. Even before then, he had developed an interest in Keller's life when he visited Birmingham after making a bust of Anthony Tanner.

During that trip, which was about 10 years ago, he met Helen Keller Eye Research's Dr. Robert Morris, who helped inspire his interest in Keller.

Seymour-Ford said the bronze bust that was lent to Perkins for the museum's opening had a moving effect on the students.

"A lot of the kids here loved it because that was their first opportunity to feel what Helen Keller looked like," she said. She believes that will happen again with the new bust.

Altshuler said he decided to make a plaster bust for a permanent gift because plaster is as close as you can get to marble, and marble is a traditional source for a sculpture of a woman, while bronze is for a man.

The bust is about three-fourths life scale and is on a circular polished green marble base, said Altshuler, whose many works through the years include a bust of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, which is displayed at the Carter Center in Atlanta.

"I worked on it for anywhere from four to five months," Altshuler said. "It took me a while because there was a lot of research and I was really trying to get the essence of Helen Keller when she was really at her strength.

"As you're searching through this thing, you're thinking, 'Do I make it when she's younger? Do I make it when she's elderly?' And I gravitated toward older, when she was more powerful."

Altshuler has completed another one just like it, and is interested in donating it to Ivy Green in Tuscumbia.

Ivy Green curator Sue Pilkilton said a bust gives visitors who are blind a wonderful opportunity. Pilkilton has watched blind visitors feel a current bust of Keller that is housed at Ivy Green, as well as furniture and other items in the museum, and says their delight is apparent.

She said Altshuler's gift is deeply meaningful.

"It's great to know that Perkins is getting a copy of the bust, and that he also thought enough of Ivy Green to include us," she said. "We partner with Perkins a lot. We've had a close relationship for years."

Bernie Delinski can be reached at bernie.delinski@timesdaily.com.