Esther Wertheimer Bids Farewell

Here is a story I wrote for Boca Raton Tribune.

I didn't put this in the story, but Esther is only two years younger than my late, beloved mother.



Sculptor Esther Wertheimer Reluctantly Says Farewell


By Skip Sheffield


All things must pass. Internationally-acclaimed sculptor Esther Wertheimer has sold her Boca Raton winter home and is returning to Montreal permanently to be with her family.
“My son, my daughter and my grandchildren are all in Canada,” Wertheimer explained. “Business has been slow here and my family is providing me with an apartment. Health care is provided in Canada too. I hate to leave Boca Raton, but I will be back.”
Esther Wertheimer was born in Lodz, Poland. She moved with her family to Montreal as
a young child.
Young Esther showed an artistic talent at an early age. She began drawing in Canada at age 8 with encouragement from artist Alexander Berocovich. She attended L’Ecole des Beaux Art and in 1958 won a four-year scholarship to Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. From there she went to the International Academy of Austria in 1966. In 1967 Wertheimer was awarded a one-year scholarship from the Italian government to attend the Academia di Belle Arts in Florence. She immersed herself in classical Italian art, which remains a strong influence. She is particularly fond of Dante and his tale of “Paolo and Francesca,” and has created a number of works on the subject.
Wertheimer won her first gold medal for art in Italy in 1977. In the years since she has amassed a list of honors including Executive Professional Woman of the year from the National Association of Professional Women in 2011. One of her most significant awards is the Gold Medal of Lorenzo il Magnifico and Certificate of Honor for her career and body of work at the Biennale Internazionale Dell’ Arte, Florence Italy, in 2009.
“I was the only American to win a Gold Medal,” Wertheimer reveals proudly. “To be honored for my life’s work and career was very gratifying.”
Wertheimer began wintering in South Florida in the 1980s. Ten years ago she bought a house in Boca Raton, where she spent half the year. Wertheimer is a very social person who loves dancing and music. Her sculptures often depict these loves in graceful, flowing figures of dancers, mothers and children.
Wertheimer has countless friends in South Florida. Jan McArt, Director of Theater Arts at Lynn University, is one of her closes friends.
“Esther Wertheimer is world-class, not only woman, but as a wonderfully talented sculptor,” commented McArt. “She is also a personal friend. I have several of her works in my Boca Raton home. Esther will be sorely missed. She is very generous to philanthropic causes and she is one heck of a wonderful dancer. The fellas will miss her too.”
Esther Wertheimer will be gone but not forgotten. Her works will remain on public display. There are several monumental sculptures at Royal Palm Place in Boca Raton and at least a half-dozen other Florida locations. You can see public commissions of her work all over the world, in America, Canada, Japan (She is particularly popular there with at least 10 public installations), Singapore, Shanghai, China and Australia. Her work can also be found in select galleries all over the USA. She hopes to eventually buy or rent an apartment in Boca Raton for the winters.
Boca Raton Estate Sales is having an open house sale at Wertheimer’s Boca Pointe house this weekend from 9a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday, Feb. 24 and Saturday, Feb. 25.
“I am telling my patrons and friends that I have over $1 million worth of art I’d like to sell before I leave for Canada,” she explains. “This will be an excellent opportunity to purchase my work at a substantial discount.”
For more information about Esther Wertheimer, call Boca Raton Estate Sales at 305-900-7045. She can be reached directly by calling 561-392-3503 or by going to www.ewertheimer.com or ewertheimer@ewertheimer.com.

Give Me a Head With Hair

Skip at age 25




Hair: I’ve always had a thing about it. I like it long and natural, on men and women.
When I was a baby I had platinum curls, like a Botticelli angel. My mother was thrilled, and as I was first-born, my dad grudgingly let her have her wish to leave my hair alone.
By the time I was two my hair was quite long, and I had a sister a year younger. She was born larger than me, and she grew quicker, and more robust. It was not long before people were asking if we were twins.
This became too much for my old man. At age 2.5 he decreed I must have a haircut to look like a real boy. My mom cried copious tears, and saved some platinum locks in an envelope in my baby book.
At age 4, for some reason my dad decided I needed a “butch” haircut. We were living in Narrragansett, Rhode Island in the Dunes Club. At a Halloween costume party, my mom costumed me as Father Time and my 1-year-old brother Richard as the New Year baby. I weighed maybe 32 pounds, and with my shaved head, brown skin from a summer in the sun, and skinny body. I looked like a little Gandhi. We won first place.
When I was 7 my paternal grandfather played a mean trick on me. I was up to 45 lbs., but still wretchedly skinny. He took me to a barber shop in St. Cloud Fla. and said “Give him a G.I.”
I didn’t know what that was, but I found out soon enough. I felt humiliated with my almost bald head.
My dad started going bald in his early 20s, and he despised guys with long hair. I made it through elementary, junior and senior high without any more scalping, then it was off to college. It was the British Invasion era, and all the guys who were allowed were growing long hair. I was the lead singer in a band that had two guys in the National Guard and a third who at age 23 was already bald. They all bought wigs to become The Weeds. I tried a wig, but I looked too much like a girl. I decided to let my own hair grow.
There were strict appearance standards at the time at Florida Southern College, but I ducked under the radar, and transferred to Palm Beach Junior College for my sophomore year.
It was a trying, chaotic year to say the least, but I earned my A.A. When it came time to collect my diploma, the Dean of Men spotted me and said, “Are you a student here?” I said yes, and I was picking up my diploma before I went back to see my family in Columbus, Ohio.
“Oh no you’re not,” he said “Not before you get a haircut.”
Turns out the dean had a sweetheart deal with the barbershop across the street.
I paid my $5 and got a brutal prison shop hairdo. The dean smiled menacingly as he relinquished my diploma.
I returned to Florida Southern for my last two years, and continued to play music as my locks grew longer.
When it came graduation time, my mom beseeched me.
“Please get a haircut,” she pleaded. “Otherwise your father won’t come to your graduation.”
Frankly I didn’t care, but I did it for mom, and I looked like a 16-year-old boy. I vowed at that time I would never again have a short haircut, as long as I had enough hair on my head not to appear foolish.
I broke that promise twice: at my first marriage at age 23 and my second at age 28.
Now I am 64- the same age my mother’s father when he died (with a full head of hair)- and sadly, I am divorced. I have not had a “store bought” haircut in 3 years. My daughter Laura does the honors. I don’t have the luxuriant “Acrylan carpet” of curly hair I once had, but there is something still up there. So with my Native American brothers, I will continue to go natural as long as nature smiles on me. Hair, it’s a beautiful thing.

Elvis at 21 at Boca Museum of Art

Elvis Presley in His Prime at Boca Museum


When you think of Elvis Presley, fine art is not the first thing that usually springs to mind- Elvis’ portrait on black velvet, maybe.
Yet popular culture meets fine art in “Elvis at 21: Photographs by Alfred Wertheimer,” running through June 13 at Boca Raton Museum of Art in Mizner Park.
Wertheimer was just 26 when he accepted an assignment to travel with Elvis in the pivotal year 1956, when the popularity of the young Tennessean singer was morphing from budding star to boundary-breaking youthquake cultural icon.
Not only are Wertheimer’s black and white images technically brilliant, they are insightful in revealing the psychological transition from aw shucks country boy to revolutionary trend-setter.
Wertheimer’s images capture Presley’s stage magnetism, and more important, his sexual attractiveness beneath that magnetism. In his prime at age 21, Presley had the raw power to reduce any girl to tears, which is proven again and again in Wertheimer’s photographs.
I was a kid when Elvis was at his peak of popularity, and I didn’t quite understand why he drove all the little girls crazy. As Elvis began his long decline into bad movies and cheesy Las Vegas stage shows, I forgot what made Elvis special in the first place. With Wertheimer’s help I feel I have gained a belated understanding of this once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon. Thanks for the memories.
“Rememberingstanleyboxer: a Retrospective 1946-2000” on the other hand is more what we expect from a fine art museum. Frankly I wasn’t that familiar with this American abstract expressionist painter, and this exhibit of 50 paintings and 13 sculptures serves as a handy primer.
So thanks for the education Boca Museum. Now I feel I know a little about this important American artist who is represented in virtually every important art museum in the USA.

Art Meets Fashion at Boca Museum Art School

Speaking of crossings boundaries, art meets fashion in the work of Nicole Napolitano and Rebecca Rolle, both students at the Art School of Boca Museum of Art at 801 W. Palmetto Park Road.
The girls fabricated dresses out of metal, vegetable and animal materials in dresses called “Mineral” made with metal, “Vegetable” made with tea bags and “Animal” made with feathers. You can see their handiwork on display through May 21 at the Art School. Both girls will attend New York’s prestigious Pratt Institute in the fall.
Call Boca Museum at 561-392-2500 or visit www.bocamuseum.org for more information.

You Can Fight City Hall, but...

You can fight City Hall.

You won’t win, but you may at least get some concessions.
I live in what used to be called the Varsity Heights section of Boca Raton in a house built in 1957.
Everyone had septic tanks back then, and because our neighborhood was mostly blue-collar and most of the houses high and dry on the eastern slope of the Boca Ridge, the city put off sewers in our neighborhood until last.
The talking and planning began way back in 2000. In July of 2006 residents were notified of impending assessments and fees, averaging the astronomical sum of $30,000.
There was a great hue and cry duly covered by the Boca Raton News. Hearings were held, residents begged and pleaded, and the city listened. Through various concessions by the city and state, the figure was pared to about $6,000, and the city ultimately made a time payment program possible.
Construction began in 2006 and continued a couple of years in phases. Finally on Oct. 16, 2008 the city decided on a 90-day deadline for residents to hook up to the new system and have their septic tank disabled, all at home owners’ expense.
Everyone has a reason to procrastinate. In my case I was going through a two-year legal battle with my wife over divorce. As part of mediation we were both allowed to live in the house until it was sold.
Meanwhile the deadline loomed. My ex was out of work and I was struggling. We applied for a city/state aid program to help with the hookup, but when they learned the house was up for sale, we were denied.
The divorce became final June 23, 2009. We continued to try to sell the house.
Meanwhile the deadline passed.
I think Boca Raton may have more code enforcement officers than any other department. At least it looks that way when you see all their trucks parked at the community center.
Aggie, our officer, is a nice and courteous woman, just doing her job.
My ex hopes to refinance and buy the house. I hope for her sake and our three daughters that it works, but meanwhile I am staggering under the burden of paying the bills. I am not alone.
I received a letter from the city from the Special Master of the City of Boca Raton that there would be a court hearing at 9 a.m. Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2010 at City Hall. I didn’t know we had a Special Master, but he is Michael J. Gelfand, and he must be a lawyer or a judge because he seemed very calm and fair-minded.
I was the first one there. I recognized Craig High, a friend who lives about a block away, and another guy who told me he lives at the end of my street.
Around eight or ten guys filed in. I recognized them all from the neighborhood. I realized we are all in the same boat. None of us is rich, and some have lost jobs, failing health, nasty divorces and in some cases already in foreclosure.
By luck of the draw, I went first. I felt like James Stewart in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” It was my plan to throw myself at the mercy of the court, so I began a litany of woe that began back in 2004 with a diagnosis of prostate cancer, and subsequent surgery. Then I spoke of marital problems, court battles, divorce and the coup de grace: the closing of my longtime employer, the Boca Raton News.
I told the court I was not trying to evade responsibility, but that I truly didn’t know what was going to happen in the immediate future. So I plead for time to talk to my ex and figure out some kind of plan to come up with the $2,500 to complete the hookup.
The Special Master conferred with a representative from the city and decreed that he would extend the time to apply for a permit to March 8 and to March 29 to get it approved.
The work must be complete and final by July 26, or homeowners face a $100 a day fine.
We bought some time, but not a solution. Some of the guys are in much worse shape than I. When facing seemingly insoluble problems there are three paths you can take: wallow in despair, ignore it completely and hope it will go away, or stand your ground and face whatever is dealt you. When you have nothing more to lose you have nothing left to fear.

What's in a Name?

Just Call Me Skip


Long-time friends will notice I have a different handle on Facebook: Norman Skip Sheffield.
The reason for that awkward nomenclature is that the name Skip Sheffield was already taken- by me.
When Boca Raton News closed so suddenly on Aug. 21, 2009, the e-mail access to all employees being dismissed was disabled.
As I was one of that unlucky lot I was cut off from everything, including my considerable e-mail address book.
After many failed attempts (I'm still quite a Luddite re the Internet) I had finally joined Facebook under my Bocanews.com address under the name Skip Sheffield.
Theoretically Boca News owned everything I've written in their employ, including my name.
I suppose there could have been a way around that conundrum, but I am impatient and practical. I just joined again on my own e-mail address under a slightly different name.
My formal name is Norman L. Sheffield, Jr. My mother started called me Skippy when I was just an infant to differentiate me from my dad. When I reached my teens I followed Rick Nelson's lead and shorted my name to the more manly Skip.
Norman Sheffield died of cancer Feb. 18, 1997. I could have said goodbye to Skip, but my difficult father was nothing if not unique. No, I could never be Norman Sheffield, may he rest in peace.
In recent years I have been doing more international travel. Of course one must travel with a passport, and the name you register your plane tickets under had better match with the one on your passport.
Previously it was only cops, banks or telemarketers who addressed me as Norman. Now I was getting used to it.
I have always been fond of nicknames and aliases. I dreamed up the character Crash Crisby, a more daring, adventurous version of myself, when I was around 9. At age 18 I was working as a busboy at a country club in Columbus, Ohio when I found an unused nametag on the floor. It read "Hello, My name is Vernon Moder."
"C'est moi!" I realized. Vernon is my nerdier, pseudo-intellectual side.
My daughters carry on the family tradition. The two older ones, Mary and Laura, act out their fantasies in a musical group called Zombies! Organize! You'll find all three of my daughters including youngest Anna on Facebook, plus an alias or two.
I say bravo. Real life can be such a drag. A little fantasy makes it all bearable.

So you can Just Call Me Skip