Sharon Liao
Leaving a Mark on the World
“This is the Honors Quad. On the
right is Carothers, where some of you may be having class when school starts.”
“Is that a statue of a naked woman?” whispered the girl on my right.
“Um… yeah, I think so,” I answered.
Oh,
the glorious days of Freshman Orientation. We got lost and walked in circles in
the blistering heat, but inevitably, something was imprinted on our minds. For
me, thoughts of the statue continuously streamed through my mind. I’d be
wondering about dinner or be engaging in some other activity, and, “So, about
that statue, why is it there? What is it? Who made it?” would flash through my
mind. I remember pushing those thoughts away. “Who cares?” I thought at the
time. “Does it even matter?” Even though many people say, “I’ll meet you at
that statue in the Quad,” few people care about its history. What is that
saying? It is 
something along the lines of there being a
story behind everything and everyone, but we just have to take the time to pay
attention to find out what it is. At any rate, having more important things to
do and buildings and places to find, namely the location of the Plan II office and
my classes before school started, I moved on in my thoughts.
Then, we were assigned this project. What should I write about? I thought about researching Parlin, founder of Plan II, but then again, maybe not. What about Littlefield, who donated sizable amounts of land and money to the University? No, I was not really that interested. Then it occurred to me that this could be the perfect opportunity for me to discover why the statue was placed there and why it was created in the first place.
I trekked (yes, trekked, as it was over a hundred degrees outside that day) across
campus from my humble abode in Jester West to the courtyard of the Quad. I sat
in front of the statue and walked all around it to see what there was to see. I
saw a woman, half-dressed, holding a bow and arrow, with a dog at her feet. Her
feet were arched as she tiptoed on top of a small sphere. There were no
inscriptions. “Well, it figures,” I thought exasperatedly. “The one thing I
finally decide to do my project on, and no information is readily available.”
Sighing, I decided that since I had already walked all the way over here, I 
might as well take some pictures of the
statue. After a couple pictures, the heat and my allergies began to get the
best of me, so I decided to make the long journey back from the Honors Quad to
Jester West. I walked along Whitis, crossed the FAC, passed the clock tower,
which was striking quarter ’til, passed the
Then
I heard a voice in the distance say, “Welcome to
I
glanced over and saw a group of people following someone, presumably a tour
guide, who was speaking to them. What was going on?
“Don’t worry. You will be safe with me.”
“Who?”
I thought to myself, glancing around. Out loud, I said, “Excuse me, but I don’t
think we’ve met. My name is
“Anna Hyatt Huntington, but you can call me Anna.”
“Anna Hyatt Huntington…?” I pondered in my mind. “Where have I heard that name? Wait, she’s dead, isn’t she?”
“Yes,
but my work is not,” she replied, causing me to jump in shock. “After all, it
intrigued you enough to inspire you to do a project based on my Diana of the Chase.”
As I struggled to process this thought, I remembered some of the basic articles I had read about her in the Fine Arts Library. I swallowed the urge to scream, decided a policy of suspension of disbelief would serve me well, and said, in the most composed manner I could manage, “Well, since you’re here, maybe you could tell me why you decided to become a sculptress.”
“It was an accident, a strange twist of fate. I was studying to become a concert violinist, and my sister, Harriet, was the sculptress, but one day, I helped her fix a broken foot on one of her works, and I realized that that was what I really wanted to do.”[1]
“So why did you mold so many animal sculptures?” I asked, grasping at straws, embarrassed that I could not remember much more about her or her works.
“Well,
my father Alpheus Hyatt was a professor of zoology at MIT. Because of this,
there were always animals around the place when I was growing up in
“Oh,”
I said, nodding, while inwardly, I was frantically searching my mind for
something else to talk about without sounding like a complete idiot. There had
to something about her in one of the articles that stood out to me. I closed my
eyes briefly and imagined myself back in the silent library, perusing pages and
pages of material, almost afraid to turn pages for fear the sound would disturb
someone. I opened my eyes and saw Fighting
Stallions again. That was it. She had done a work with someone mounted on a
horse when she was in
“Then why did you decide to fashion Joan of Arc?” I questioned. “It’s so different, and you did it so suddenly in your career. Nothing you did before it really led up to so monumental a sculpture.”
“Well, I had always wanted to sculpt
Joan of Arc, so when I had the chance to, I took it. I was in
Like I said, there is a story and explanation for everything.
“Well, it was lovely talking to you,
but I have another engagement. Don’t fret; I’ll make sure you get back to
Jester when you are through here.”
“Right,” I thought. “Now what?” I
wandered slowly through the fifty acres of sculpture at 
walls of sterile museums do not touch me in
the same way as if they had been placed in their natural setting. I really
would have loved to bask in the glory of this place, but I really needed to
start my project! How would I get back to
Out of nowhere, she replied, “I’m here. I just wanted you to gather your thoughts and experience the place for yourself without burdening you with my feelings and biases.”
I flinched in fright. How did she do that? “Speaking of feelings, do you think it’s more important for a person to do something that causes him to be happy, or is it more important for a person to do something that will earn him a lot of money?” I questioned.
She laughed. “Well, it’s important for you to be happy, but we also have to be practical. Sculpting was my joy and passion, but without sufficient funding, I would never have been able to produce many of my large, monumental works. I would also never have been able to support myself. I guess you could say I was lucky when I married Archer, who had financial assets to spare and who supported my art.”[7]
“But how does one find her vocation? How do I know what I’m supposed to do?” I continued to probe.
“Well, that is what life is all about, isn’t it? Have patience. Be introspective, but try not to think too hard about it. You can plan all you want, but if something jumps out at you, it will still take you by surprise. I changed my mind, and because of that, the direction my life took was drastically changed.”
“So how am I supposed to answer well-meaning adults when they ask me what I want to do when I graduate? They all think I should have my life planned out, and if I don’t, some of them seem to have made my plans for me.” I tried to keep the bitterness and frustration out of my voice, but I guess I did not quite succeed.
“Well, you cannot change what people think, but you have to learn to be strong and independent while understanding that they do have good intentions. When I created the mold for Joan of Arc, I entered it in a contest, and I was not given a medal because the judges refused to believe that I, a woman, could have created the piece on my own. There will always be people who try to bring you down, but you have to understand yourself and be happy with yourself.”[8]
“What about other people’s expectations of me, though? Take my parents’ expectations, for example. I can’t just turn around and do what I want with no consideration for all the commitment and effort they have put into raising and educating me,” I protested.
“There are other ways of being successful than following the beaten path. Just because something has not been done before does not mean that it cannot be done,” she reasoned.
I vaguely remembered the tour guide saying something about Anna Hyatt Huntington being the first female sculptor to be granted entrance to the Academy of Arts and Letters, the first woman to complete a “heroic equestrian statue” (Joan of Arc),[9] and among the first sculptors, male or female, to use aluminum in her sculptures.[10] “Okay,” I thought, “point taken.”
“However,” she cautioned, “you still have to know what you are doing and have a thorough understanding of the fundamentals before you begin experimenting.”
“So is it true that you spent a lot of time at the Bronx Zoo, just observing the animals and their actions?”
“Yes.
When I lived in
“So
you left
(In my mind, I heard echoes of that day we decided to have World Literature outside. As we stepped outside for the last fifteen minutes of class, people all around began expressing their contentment at being in the sunshine. Professor Bump, of course, overheard this, and began to tell us to feel the history of the ground beneath us and the heritage of the trees around us.)
“That
is a good way to put it. I felt confined and pressured living in a big house in
“But
if you already had so much space in
“Actually,
we had purchased the land in 
Archer’s
idea. He wanted to have a place to display my works, but I remembered what it
was like in the early years, struggling to make a name for myself, trying to
prove that I was worthy of the art world’s attention, so I also displayed the
art of other sculptors.”[13]
I looked around. By this time, we
had reached the original Diana of the
Chase, which was placed in the center of a fountain in Diana Garden, the
heart of
“Well,
Diana, as you probably know, was a Roman goddess who represented purity and was
usually shown hunting in Roman art, often accompanied in sculptures by dogs or
deer: hence the title, Diana of the Chase.
Also, I suppose you could say the Greek 
counterpart of Diana would be Artemis, who
basically lived in and governed from the forests. Diana was also associated
with tamed creatures, so you see where the appeal lay for someone like me.”[15]
“But why did you portray her in the midst of shooting an arrow instead of standing beneath a tree or something? Why that particular pose?” I prodded.
“A good answer would be to just tell you to look at all my other works. The subjects of my sculptures are always in the middle of doing something. Take, for example, Jaguar Reaching, or the statue I made of José Martí. I was not partial to casting images of still figures. I wanted to convey a sense of their emotions and their vitality.”[16]
I stared at the statue, and when I looked up, we were inside a library. “Where are we?” I ventured to ask. Although I had whispered the question, my voice echoed and reverberated through the high-ceilinged corridors.
“We
are inside the Library of the
“What’s Diana doing in here with us?” I was quite puzzled.
“Well, when I first donated the statue to the University, former President Battle made the decision to place the statue inside the library, which is where we are now,”[17] Anna explained.
“So why is the statue in the center of the Quad now?” I inquired.
“Well, after thinking about it for a number of years, the University decided to move the statue outside because they thought it would be a more appropriate setting for it. After all, this spirited goddess of the forest does not really belong in such an austere place as a library. She belongs where her surroundings reflect who she is and what she stands for, don’t you think?”[18]
As soon as she said this, the room began to spin and faded into the familiar trees and sunlight of the Quad’s courtyard.
“So
what was the purpose of all this time and space traveling that I just did? I
still have to write my paper and do research, and I haven’t gotten anywhere! In
fact, I’m further behind than I was when I began this crazy journey.” I was
slightly irritated that, though it had been an adventure á la 
precious
time. (Do I hear the White Rabbit frantically scurrying about while examining
his pocket watch? Perhaps it is only a squirrel scrambling to store away enough
acorns before winter sets in.)
“Look at the statue again,” she gently instructed, unperturbed by my outburst of frustration and panic. “What do you see now? Look carefully.”
As I examined the statue once more, I saw a young woman, comfortable and at ease with herself, balancing not precariously but joyously, on a small sphere, her dog prancing at her side. I remembered that Diana had been moved from a sheltered, indoor location in a library to her current location now in the center of the Honors Quad, surrounded and protected by trees, yet able to bask in the sunshine.
Today,
I find myself passing through the Quad once again. Diana is a focal point in the courtyard, yet she 
seems also to belong there. As I follow the
graceful curve of her arm, I see the blue sky with a few wispy clouds floating
across. I see the Tower in the background, grounding me and reminding me of
where I am. I wonder when I, too, will find my place, one of many, yet unique.
Word Count: 2944