Mother Clara’s Garden - 2013 - Graced with exuberant brush strokes and a vibrant collage, Mother Clara’s Garden created by Shinique Smith is inspired by the loving and generous nature of Mother Clara Hale who, for more than 50 years, cared for children -- orphaned, sick and from broken homes -- and helped transform their lives. Totaling approximately 6,672 square feet, the monumental artwork is composed of mosaic located on the façade and laminated glass in windows of the new Mother Clara Hale Bus Depot building located on Lenox Avenue between 146th and 147th Street in Central Harlem. Shinique Smith collected clothing, fabric and other cast-off materials from the community surrounding Hale House and the Mother Clara Hale Bus Depot to incorporate in her original artwork. A child’s drawing of a bus stop found near Hale House influenced her deeply and became the source of inspiration for the artwork. “This (child’s) drawing inspired my palette,” Smith said. “We are all connected by childhood dreams and memories threaded through clothing and the things we consume and discard. I have taken these unwanted bits and woven them into a garden in an attempt to embody the spirit of Mother Clara, creating beauty and grace from humble materials.” Smith works in a variety of artistic media, including collage, painting, sculpture, and video. Her work is known for the vast vocabulary of collected objects that alternate with fluid calligraphic lines and movement, suggestive of qualities that resonate on a personal and social scale. The original work of Mother Clara’s Garden is composed of ten large-scale panels of colorful painted collage and centers on a spiritual motif of mother and child-like figures embracing in an abstracted garden. Smith worked with Mosaika Art & Design to translate the original work into mosaic, using tiles uniquely made for the project to create roughness and texture on the surface, a process similar to a collage. In May 2012, Smith worked with first grade students at PS 242, Young Diplomats Magnet Academy, to draw flowers and incorporated the drawings into the art glass for the north and south windows of the Bus Depot building. The art glass is fabricated by Peters Studios. In keeping with the new Mother Clara Bus Depot status as a certified green building, Mother Clara’s Garden was created by weaving discarded materials into a vibrant garden. The result is a monumental work as the artist’s tribute to Mother Clara Hale as well as to the people in the community.

Mother Goose - 1938 - Frederick George Richard Roth (1872-1944) created this whimsical sculpture of Mother Goose and her related fables. The statue consists of the central figure of a witch astride a goose, surrounded by bas-reliefs of Humpty Dumpty, Old King Cole, Little Jack Horner, Mother Hubbard, and Mary and her little lamb. Roth and a team of craftsmen carved this work of art from a 13-ton piece of Westerly granite. In 1934, Roth was hired through the Works Progress Administration as the chief sculptor for Parks. In that year, the new Central Park Zoo opened, and Roth oversaw a team of artisans who carved the limestone animal reliefs that adorn the animal houses. The following year the same team worked on the sculptural embellishments for the Prospect Park Zoo, and in 1936 Roth completed the granite statues of figures from Alice in Wonderland which stand at the center of the Sophie Irene Loeb fountain in Central Park's James Michael Levin Playground. In the spring of 1937 Roth's Dancing Goat and Dancing Bear sculptures were placed in basins which flanked Kelly's Cafeteria at the western terrace of the Central Park Zoo, and now stand in niches near the north and south entrances to the zoo. Within close proximity to the Mother Goose statue, which stands at the entrance to the Mary Harriman Rumsey Playfield near the East Drive just south of the 72nd transverse road, visitors to Central Park can find several sculptures of special interest to children. These include Jose De Creeft's Alice in Wonderland at the north end of Conservatory Water (the model boat pond), the statue of Hans Christian Anderson and the Ugly Duckling (1956) by Georg John Lober on the west side of the model boat pond, the Sophie Irene Loeb Fountain near East 76th Street, and Balto, west of the East Drive at 67th Street.