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“Restoring History,” Star Democrat, Easton, Md. Nov. 19, 1993

Rowan’s Recreation Wins Award from the Met

by Dave Williams

Carol Rowan’s passion is studying the venerated facades of institutions, such as the US Supreme Court, the Library of Congress, and Yale University, and “repairing” them -- not with hammer and chisel, but with pencil and paper. 

And for her efforts, the Royal Oak artist drew the attention of another venerated institution, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which gave one of her drawings its Graphite Award in a New York exhibition of women artists from across the country. 

The Catherine Lorillard Wolf Art Club exhibition, held earlier this year at the National Arts Club in New York, selected Rowan’s “Yale Totem,” a drawing of a Mayan-influenced ornament from the University’s library, and she received the museum’s award October 30. 

“It's an honor to show at the National Arts Club and it’s an honor to win an award from the Metropolitan,” says Rowan, who drew the work last year. 

Unlike some of the architecture she “repairs,” the statue gracing the Yale Library was merely discolored from decades of pollution. “The stone head had got really black, New Haven’s a pretty polluted city,” she said. 

“I think originally, it was a beautiful piece, and it’s not a beautiful piece now, so it’s like I’m recreating it back to its original beauty,” she said. “The statue itself is really dirty, so you restore it back to its natural beauty in its natural state, which you cannot do in a photograph.” 

The stylized Mayan totem from the Yale Library is a departure from most of her work, which focuses on the kind of neoclassical architecture that fills the Nation’s Capitol. “I just felt it was one of my strongest pieces, that’s why I submitted it,” she said.

Another departure is a drawing, a set of Korean “dream spirit guards,” in the Rockefeller Garden in Maine. 

But mainly, Rowan is concentrating on buildings in Washington, including the statues that flank the Supreme Court and the friezes along its walls. 

She said the Supreme Court is “in pretty good shape,” hastily adding that she meant the building, not necessarily the institution. The Library of Congress, by contrast, is “pretty disgusting,” she said.

“There are beautiful sculptures that were done a couple hundred years ago, and now they’re not beautiful any more,” she said. 

After spending the day in the city using pencil and paper to remove the effects of centuries of grime from national institutions, Rowan likes to be able to return to Royal Oak, where she recently moved, she said. 

“It’s great to work here,” it’s so beautiful, she said. “After living in Manhattan, in Los Angeles, it’s nice to be living on the Eastern Shore.” 

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