Art Reviews
PARK EAST, NYC
"Art and Artists"
by Dorothy Hall
November 1987
Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club 91st International
Exhibition:
The level of the works on exhibition is the 91st
Anniversary Exhibition of the Catharine Lorillard
Wolfe Art Club earlier this month makes it a difficult
task to select only a few for mention. Among the
watercolors, . . . Meredith d'Ambrosio's fresh
"Early Spring" makes us think we never
have seen greening before . . .
THE INQUIRER AND MIRROR
Nantucket, Mass.
"Friday's storm fails to dampen Kenneth Taylor's
annual Artist-Patron event"
August 18, 1980
. . . Meredith d'Ambrosio's "Nesting Area"
is the second of her eggshell mosaics to be presented
in the gallery this season. Yes, eggshell! From
thousands of tiny prepainted pieces of eggshell,
she has labored hundreds of hours to piece together
this delicate beach dunes scene. The atmosphere
is alive, the gulls practically move, and yet
above all the motion, a sense of calm pervades.
. .
PARK EAST, NYC
"C.W.Wolfe Art Club"
April 1978
"Traffic Signal #3" |
An exhibition of sculpture, painting and graphics
by members of the Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art
Club is being held at the Madison Avenue and 47th
Street branch of Manufacturers Hanover Trust Co.
There is a preponderance of excellent paintings
in this show, some of which are . . . Meredith
d'Ambrosio's "Traffic Signal #3", a
mosaic of painted eggshells, is original and quite
effective. . .
THE COURIER
Onset, Mass.
"Unusual art displayed in Onset"
by Linda Ahlborg (Memorial Press Group Staff)
July 27, 1977
Onset Bay Gallery
. . . Still on view at the gallery are the eggshell
mosaics of Newton artist Meredith d'Ambrosio.
Hers is a technically exacting art wherein tiny
pieces of colored eggshell are painstakingly pieced
together to form a whole. The resulting texture
provides an interesting contrast to the poignant
simplicity of much of her work. Especially effective
are the desolate landscapes "Wellfleet",
with its muted tones of brown and gray, and the
stark but lovely "February Corn". The
technique also works well in "Traffic Signal"
and "Rue de St. Louis" in which modern
signs reminicent of pop art, utility lines and
other accoutrements of modernity are set in otherwise
tranquil scenes. . . "October" employs
rich coloring but in a cleaner design and with
more contrast.
THE INQUIRER AND MIRROR
Nantucket Isl., Mass.
August 2, 1979
"Saturday Morning" |
Artists' Assoc'n of Nantucket
John Arthur, gallery director at Boston University,
served as juror at the fourth exhibition of the
Artists' Association last Friday. In what is proving
to be the most popular show to date, nine honorable
mentions were awarded in addition to the first
and second prizes. Meredith d'Ambrosio's most
unique eggshell mosaic captured top honors. "Saturday
Morning", as it is titled, is an intricate
inlay of tiny, acryllic pieces of eggshell. The
result is a highly textured and detailed study
of a still life. The air flows, the fine linen
curtain and hanging spider plant move delicately,
the lemon is real. Ms. d'Ambrosio worked over
300 hours to complete the piece. . .
The Courier
Onset Bay, Mass.
June 25, 1975
On display at the Onset Gallery throughout the
summer will be the work of Meredith d'Ambrosio
who creates eggshell mosaics with infinite patience
and diligence. She has shown widely and won many
awards including the 1975 Jurors' Choice, Cambridge
Art Ass'n. She is scheduled to show in Nov. at
Bradford College; in December at Brockton Art
Museim; and Autumn 1976 in the William Ash Gallery,
Cambridge England.
In 1958, she created a mosaic method using eggshells
in the true mosaic form. While preparing eggshell
mosaics for exhibitions, Ms. d'Ambrosio has been
professionally devoted to all phases of calligraphic
art, and to private instruction in fundamental
drawing, pencil and pen technique, oil, watercolor,
sculpture, calligraphy and eggshell mosaic.
Sunday Herald Traveler
Boston, MA
"A Source of Income and a New Art Form"
by Betty Curtis
August 2, 1970
She's an Artist with Eggshells
Most folks throw their eggshells out with the
rubbish. But not Newton artist Meredith d'Ambrosio.
She saves them and uses them as a lucrative source
of income. Talented Meredith, who has braided
honey blonde hair and large green eyes, has created
an unique art form - eggshell mosaic. And by the
time she has finished with the shells, even a
hen wouldn't recognize them. Eggshell mosaic is
a form of art demanding what most people regard
as super human patience. First, Meredith sketches
the subject on a masonite board. She then crushes
painted eggshells . . . quite a job when you consider
some pieces are so small they are almost invisible
to the naked eye. She then applies each piece
separately onto her own "secret" cement
on the sketched board with tweezers. Meredith's
eggshell mosaics are exquisite examples of detailed
beauty whether the subject is a vase of flowers
or a Boston scene. They have a porcelain lustre
about them, and it is hard to realize they are
actually made up of millions [thousands] of pieces
of common eggshell. Recently she sold one for
$1600 and has just completed another for which
she hopes to get $2900. "It's a good thing
I like eggs", laughed the 29 year old artist.
"It would be a terrible waste if I didn't
. . ." When she's not working on her eggshell
mosaic, Meredith is writing illuminated scrolls,
for she is an expert calligrapher as well. There
was a time, too, when she combined her art with
entertainment in jazz lounges in Boston - she's
a jazz singer/pianist - but this was too heavy
a schedule especially with a lively young daughter
to care for. Now she concentrates on her art and
sings only as a hobby. "I often come downstairs
when I have finished work around midnight and
sing and play," she says. "It's wonderful
relaxation." Another of her hobbies is gourmet
cooking. "That's how I learned to crack eggs
so well," she quipped. Meredith's late mother
was in show business for many years and her father
is a furniture refinisher.
The Art World
Boston University
Radio: WBUR 90.9
for immediate release.
by Edward J. W. Cooper
November 1973
Meredith d'Ambrosio
We can admire the patience and diligence with
which Meredith d'Ambrosio puts together the minute
pieces of eggshell to create her mosaics. In a
lesser artist this might be the only quality presented.
Here in this exhibition at Newton College, running
from November 4 to 16, we see the eggshell mosaic
as the surface quality giving an unique visual
vibration to images that are in every sense valid
works of art. One of the outstanding features
of all Meredih d'Ambrosio's work is space. The
spatial relationships between buildings in her
street scenes; between the forms of single figures
and their surroundings in the interior scenes.
In "Anticipation" the recumbent nude
figure is a perfect composition of spatial relationship.
There is no doubt that Meredith d'Ambrosio is
a master of draughtsmanship. Every detail is exquisite
yet there is no tightness, and the precision of
her work does not overwhelm the whole visual impact.
This exhibition is drawn from many experiences
in the artist's life, from her home, from rural
America, from the circus and from the streets
of French Canada. One is aware of an artist who
observes every subtlety and is able to make her
visual experience the source of her creative work.
Milford Daily News
Bellingham, MA
May 23, 1979
Eggs-quisite
Artist Meredith d'Ambrosio of Newton opened Latin
Week at Bellingham High School with a demonstration
of her eggshell mosaic technique. She has won
16 international awards for her pictures created
by placing tiny bits of eggshell on a board covered
with cement. The demonstration was sponsored by
the Career Information Center at the school.
Boston Globe
Theater/Arts
PolyArts' Third N.E. Festival
"Something for every artistic taste"
by Robert Taylor, Globe Staff
. . . The eggshell mosaics of Meredith d'Ambrosio
of Newton occupied a space next to the art of prisoners
from the Suffolk County House of Correction. She
has been using eggshells since 1959. "They
are true mosaics. I paint small shells, break them
and place them with a tweezer onto cement atop a
sketch on a thick board." The artist, therefore,
obtains a stylized figurative imagery where she
manipulates softer textural effects than she might
with tiles.
Sun Chronicle
"Women and Art - A Creative and Timely Exhibit
Comes to the Attleboro Museum"
by Cheryl Lechten
July 1974
ATTLEBORO - A personal glimpse into the minds, thoughts
and experiences of women, exposed through the visual
arts is the dominant theme of the WEB (Women Exhibiting
in Boston) Summer Show on display now through July
27 at the Attleboro Museum at Capron Park. Each
work depicts a feeling of femaleness, of women's
connection with femaleness, of women's connection
with the earth, the sea, with the oposite sex and
with society's institutions, such as marriage and
the family. Each is as diverse and creative as the
individual artist who created it, yet each work
is related to one another by the overall message
it seeks to relay. . . The serene but sometimes
turbulent feelings of adolescents are displayed
in two mosaics by Meredith d'Ambrosio. "Cyd's
Attic", the most popular item among children
visiting the exhibit, is done in soft colors of
painted bits of eggshell mosaic. The little girl's
restful, serene mood is complemented by her neat
attic room, filled with children's literature. Her
window looks out to the treetops and roofs of nearby
homes. Yet across the gallery is another eggshell
mosaic done by the same artist. This time a young
girl is riding a horse in the moonlight. The horse
is galloping and the child's hair is blowing in
the night wind.
The Christian Science Monitor
" 'Art for the Young' in many media"
by Susan Drysdale
Cambridge, Mass.
March 23, 1972
Let your child take you by the hand and scamper
off to the Cambridge Art Association, 23 Garden
St. where "Art for the Young", a happy
mixture of paintins, prints, assemblage, and sculpture
is likely to give equal pleasure to the adult and
small and not so small fry. . . And the general
standard of work in this juried show by artist-members
of the association is high. For sheer delicacy of
color and execution "Circus" by Meredith
d'Ambrosio takes the prize. This soft eggshell mosaic
by an artist who trained at the Boston Museum School
is, despite its seeming fragility, apparently rock
hard . . .
The Newton Times
by Katherine Nahum
November 6, 1974
Newton's Meredith d'Ambrosio is exhibiting her eggshell
mosaics at the Cleveland Gallery on Newbury St.,
Boston, until mid-November. d'Ambrosio places fractured,
colored eggshells on the picture plane with tweezers.
The density with which the eggshells are placed
and the degree to which the neutral or dark surface
behind the shells can be seen gives the picture,
by turns, a sfumato, dreamy atmosphere or the harsh,
reality-bound clarity of realism. d'Ambrosio's woman
riding a horse at night is notable for its restless
energy, emotion and the curious quality of the atmosphere
- the night - comining up behind the horse and rider
and seeming to swallow them up. The artist exhibits
a number of new, smaller works as well; one shows
a tree executed in purer color schema and filled
with sunlight. A successful show: d'Ambrosio's recent
work and technique is surer and finer than ever.
New Bedford Standard Times
July 13, 1977
Nationally known artist Meredith d'Ambrosio points
to her eggshell mosaic "February Corn"
as a work of her own that she likes best. d'Ambrosio,
who specializes in eggshell mosaics, was one of
a number of artists represented and present at Saturday's
opening of the Onset Bay Art Gallery. The opening
was a featured event of the Onset Centennial celebration.
Videotheque de Paris
November 1988
Rencontre Internationale Jazz et Video
Avec le concours de la SACEM, le Festival de Jazz
de paris a tenu, cette année, à rassembler
des Vidéogrammes de jazz, récemment
réalisés un peu partout en Europe;
dans l'attente d'un véritable marché
professionnel pour ces programmes; ce sera l'occasion
de faire le point sur de grandes (néanmoins
concises) questions: qui filmer? Comment? Pour qui?
Et avec quels moyens?
Randy Weston à Tanger; Gil Evans au Festival
de Jazz de Paris 1987; Dizzy Gillespie et Wynton
Marsalis à pompéi en 1984; Kirk Lightsey
à Pori (Finlande) en 1986; Michael Brecker,
Joe Henderson, Illinois Jacquet et Johnny Griffin
à Berlin l'année suivante; Herbie
Hancock, Red Rodney, Marc Johnson at quelques autres
à Molde (Norvege) cet été :
voilà pour les longs et moyens métrages
. . . A quoi d'ajouteront l'étonnante vidéo
de Robert Cahen sur un collage musical de John Zorn;
sept solos d'improvisateurs captés par Guy
Girard; les répétitions de Gil Evans
et Helen Merrill pour leur album "Collaboration"
et le délicat portrait de Meredith d'Ambrosio,
chanteuse, pianiste . . . et peintre, réalisé
par Olivier Leguillon. Le jazz saisi par l'image
dans tous ses états...
Sun Chronicle
Attleboro, Mass.
"Attleboro Museum Features WEB Work
by Marjorie A. Dix
ATTLEBORO - . . . For the present exhibit at the
Attleboro Museum, Mrs Betty Dunlop has selected
30 exhibitors. These include paintings, both oil
and watercolors, etchings, abstracts and impressionistic
paintings in acrylic as well as a number of traditional
subjects . . . Of special interest in Galleries
II and III are two large eggshell mosaics. The one
in Gallery II is of a woman reading and the one
in Gallery III is a moonlight scene of a woman horseback
rider. What makes these mosaics so unusual is that
the artist has used crushed eggshells. . . hundreds
of tiny pieces are placed on the canvas which has
been treated with an adhesive substance, then painted
to form the picture whichclosely resembles, mosaics
made of colored tiles. . .
The Call
"Latin Week Featured at Bellingham High"
May 17, 1979
BELLINGHAM - Latin week at Memorial High School
was opened with a demonstration of unique eggshell
mosaic technique by Meredith d'Ambrosio of Newton,
an international artist. The lecture was sponsored
by the Career Information Center at the high school.
Madelyn Gonnerman, Latin Club advisor, introduced
the artist. By the age of six, Meredith d'Ambrosio
was immersed in studies of art, dance and piano.
In 1958, the young artist was awarded a scholarship
to the Boston Museum School. Quite by accident,
she discovered eggshells to be the art medium she
was seeking. Developing the eggshell mosaic, she
decided to commit herself to the new art form. As
a multi-talented individual, Miss d'Ambrosio has
been able to rely upon singing, calligraphy and
teaching to support her mosaic work. She is an accomplished
jazz singer, performing for years around Boston.
Since 1970, the artist has been exhibiting her eggshell
mosaics. She has become affiliated with 11 art associations
and has participated in 90 national and international
group shows and competitions. Her work has been
exhibited in 10 solo shows, including one in England,
and her work is on display now in New York. She
has received 16 awards for her mosaics, including
the Prix de Paris . . .
The Enterprise
Falmouth, Mass.
"333 Gallery In Charming Old House Will Present
40 artists This Summer"
by Peter Koenig
July 1, 1994
. . . Gallery 333 presents a well-balanced combination
of work by both local and regional artists as well
as other outstanding work by such nationally prominent
artists as Andrew Stevovich, David Kupferman, Richard
Royce of Boston, Frank Monaco, and Meredith d'Ambrosio
of Florida and Cape Cod. She began her association
with 333 last season, and this year presents a series
of new watercolors of both European and local subjects.
"Leaving The Castle" |
Several of her large, carefully viewed, superbly
designed and flawlessly executed watercolors picture
the region of her husband's ancestral home in Scotland.
One of these paintings, the 21 x 29 landscape titled
"Leaving The Castle", portrays a rich
green scene with a central gray road leading to
gateposts and, presumably, the entrance to Borthwick
Castle (built in 1430) located south of Edinborough.
Large trees thick with green foliage left and right
lead to distant fields, and the painting is a superb
balance of light and dark, sunlight and shadow,
and rich color throughout. . .
The Enterprise
Falmouth, Mass.
"Gallery 333 Continues to Present Outstanding
Work in Varied Media" by Peter L. Koenig
August 27, 1993
. . . "It is a special pleasure to introduce
the paintings of Meredith d'Ambrosio to Falmouth,"
says Arlene Hecht, "and this exhibition of
her extraordinary and major size watercolors is
a special invitational show for Gallery 333.
"Key West Hibiscus" |
Meredith is a Renaissance woman with a national
and international reputation as a painter and singer.
Accompanied by her jazz pianist husband Eddie Higgins,
she has performed throughout America and Europe,
and most recently at New York's Tavern on the Green
and East Bay Lodge in Osterville." Meredith
d'Ambrosio studied at the School of the Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston, and has extensively exhibited
her watercolors including at WBZ-TV in Boston, the
Cambridge Art Association, Newton College, the Jazz
Quarry in Oregon, and in New York, Florida, Wyoming,
and Oklahoma as well as Paris and London.
"Hemingway's Garden" |
Among her many visual awards, she has been recognized
at by the Copley Society in Boston as a Master for
Life, at the Oklahoma Museum and the Nantucket Art
Ass'n, and the Council of American Artists in New
York. She is the creator of the eggshell mosaic
technique, described in Making Mosaics, by B. Freeman-Lewis,
(Drake Publications, N.Y.). Among her large watercolors
here, "Hemingway's Garden" presents a
colorist tropical vista through its thick greens
and balance of light and darks; "Daniels Island"
(Cape Cod) shows a row of mail boxes in a bright
landscape of color, light, and joy; and the close-up
garden view in "Key West Hibiscus" is
a strong design with rich shadows.
Nauset Calendar
"This Year's Visit to Gallery 333"
by Anne Harmon
August 1994
. . . Meredith d'Ambrosio's watercolors of Scotland
capture and rolling hills to perfection. The artist
is also a world traveler, musician and composer.
"Leaving The Castle" is a beautiful watercolor
of her husband Eddie Higgins's ancestral lands of
Borthwick Castle.
Midwest Museum Bulletin
(a publication of the Midwest Museum of American
Art, Elkhart, Indiana)
Volume 21
May/June 1998
The Art of Meredith d'Ambrosio
Meredith d'Ambrosio is a multi-talented artist in
the visual arts and the jazz world. Her career as
a visual artist blossomed in 1959 when she invented
a method of using eggshells in a mosaic style. Of
late she has concentrated on watercolors of which
several examples will be on display during the week
of the Elkhart Jazz Festival beginning June 12 through
June 28. A frequent performer at the festival, d'Ambrosio's
talents as a visual artist will lend an air of excitement
to those visiting the museum or listening to the
artist singing there, accompanied by pianist, Eddie
Higgins. The art of d'Ambrosio depicts pastoral
scenes and life from Cape Cod and Florida where
the artist resides, as well as from her world travels
as a Jazz vocalist. . . [The exhibition was held
over until July 6.] One watercolor was acquired
for permanent collection by the museum. (ed.)].
Am. Artists' Professional League
January 1998
Meredith d'Ambrosio, MA. had ten of her recent watercolors
on exhibit at the Museum of Auvers-sur-Oise in the
Manoir des Colombieres from Sept. 26 through Oct.
12, 1997 - the French village of Auvers-sur-Oise
where Van Gogh resided, painted and is buried. For
two weeks beginning June 21, 1998 twelve of her
watercolors will be on exhibit at the Midwest Museum
of American Art in Elkhart, IN.
Boston Record American
"And you were wondering what to do with those
eggshells . . ."
by Sally Nimaroff
October 10, 1974
It isn't often that someone will come up with a
creative use for eggshells, but Meredith d'Ambrosio
of Newton, Mass. has discovered one that is both
useful and beautiful - mosaics. Looking at her creation,
one would think that only someone of super-human
patience would succeed in this art. Meredith, however,
considers this more of a relaxation for her. "I
don't think it's tedious because it's my baby. It's
interesting, and you can't get bored with something
you like." The origin for this art came to
her in a rather unusual way. She had been looking
for a mosaic medium but didn't want stones or tiles
because it was too common. While doing the dishes
one night, some eggshells dropped into her porcelain
sink and sounded just like glass. "A lightbulb
seemed to appear. Just like in the cartoons."
She knew that eggshells would be a lasting substance
and after experimenting with various cements and
techniques, she came up with her "secret cement"
as she refers to it, and developed a method of placing
the shells wherever she wanted. The amazing part
of her work comes from the fact that she creates
real scenes with detailed shapes, not just abstract
art. This seemed almost impossible to believe until
she said that each shell is put in with a tweezer.
Much of her work comes from places she has seen
and sketched on a pad. "Sometimes I'll see
a scene in my mind that I have to put down. If I
can't find it in the outside world as a model, I'll
just take it from the image in my head." The
sketches are then transferred onto wood. Much of
her work includes details such as wires and letters,
which appear as straight as if she used a brush
to paint them. After removing the membrane from
the shells, she paints them in various colors. Meredith
can picture each color and duplicate it on her palette.
She judges the amount of shells per color by spreading
the shells on the sketch before cementing. Each
color often has many shades within one specific
area. Surprisingly enough, a lack of eggshells is
never a problem. Between friends, local grocers,
and her own consumption of eggs, Meredith manages
to always have a lot on hand. One egg is equal to
approximately three inches on the drawing. Each
shell piece is usually about 1/4 inch in size, with
the more detailed designs requiring an even smaller
dimension. Although she has been working on the
mosaics since 1959, her enthusiasm is still growing.
She works 12 to 15 hours every day. The amount of
time needed for each scene depends on the size of
the wood but also on her excitement about it. One
large one took only two weeks to complete. "I
was so excited about it that I couldn't wait to
finish. The ones from my mind alone get done faster."
Meredith's artistic talent is not limited to mosaics
alone. She studied at the Boston Museum School.
She also studied the Zanerian Method of Calligraphic
Art and has work designing letters for advertising,
engrossed illuminated scrolls, and given private
instruction in fundamental drawing, calligraphy,
oil, watercolor, and other phases of art. Her talent
also extends beyond that of art: she plays the piano
and sings. At the moment, Meredith has over 30 pieces
of work in her house, ready to be delivered to the
Cleveland Gallery on Newbury St. in Boston for an
exhibition which will run from Oct. 19 till Nov.
19. Her goal is to have her work in permanent collections
in museums or private homes world over. This, however,
runs second to the dedication for her work. "When
I first started, people's reactions were convincing
enogh for me to continue. Now if it brings joy to
them, I'm happy."
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