The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-15


 my hands and a childish desire to find I something satisfactory to mirror my
 dreams of beauty. After that l did not try again for several years. Finally a pie | ture of the head of Socrates in history inspired the making of bust about half
 life size. Then, from time to time dur
 ing the next two or three years l made
 small models from illustrations in the
 magazines, usually portraits
 And in the meantime she was asked,
 what instruction did you receiver" And
 her reply was eloquent of the burning fire of genius that has never wavered in all | the years since she made the tiny head
 from her clay pastry at the door of her
 mothers cottage. "At 15,'' she said, my mother sent me to the Normal college in Livingston and I studied there three
 years ago. It was in the second year that Miss Julia Tutwier heard of the model 1 ing had been trying to do and it was | letter from her advising me to return that prevented me from beginning career as | teacher of small country school. An art | teacher had been secured who had had a normal course in sculpture. Though there were other studies in my curriculum, much of my time that session, and, I am afraid, most of my attention, was given | 10 her. I worked sometimes from casts and sometimes, in more ambitious mo- ments, I tried to form original compost | tions. Yes, it was some of these latter that Miss Tutwiler sent to Birmingham to the Chamber of Commerce with let ter asking that some one assist me to get
 the training in sculpture which was be. yond my mothers means"
 Those little models exhibited at the Chamber of Commerce-frst expressions from the soul of an artist almost untaught were understood by men and women whose training enabled them to appreciate the artistic value of the crude little bits of clay, but it remained for the one who knew best to see the wonderful little inn ages that the girlish hands had shaped shorn of all their crudeness and proclaim I ing the marvellous gift which nature had bestowed. Mr. Moretti at that time liv- ing in Talladega, was shown them and | offered to become her instructor. This
 was done," said Miss Mercer, 'out of his great enthusiasm for progress and devel-
 
 | opment and with generosity too spon- taneous to desire any return. He offered | to give me instruction until I should be- l come self-supporting. I went to Talla 1 dega in June, 1907, and have lived in his family ever since. The progress that l 1 have made since producing those little | models sent to the Commercial club is due to him and to the sweet encourage
 ment of Mrs. Moretti. After two and
 half years of constant study in Mr. Mor- ctti's studio near Talladega and soon after he and Mrs. Moretti went to Italy, l joined them in Florence in September, 1509. Until then I had been copying ai- most continually, according to MT. Nor etti's direction, from plaster casts, from
 nature and from the antique Just before left Alabama I made a lfe-sized por- trait bust from nature so that I might have that study under Mir Moretti's Iteaching. That was never exhibited for we left Talladega very soon afterward.'' 2 Did your work in his Florentine studio differ in character from that pursued while in Talladega?7 she was asked.
 "Only this. did original work alto gether; that is. I made in clay the things that l composed-not copies from other
 work nor suggestions from my professor.