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Rodney A. Shaw ’58

May 3, 2014 in Norwood, Colorado, following a fall.

A sculptor whose predominantly female figures revealed, in his words, “a sneaking fondness for calming beauty,” Rod worked in many media, but his favorite was terra-cotta.

He grew up near Chicago, Illinois, and graduated with a double major in art and sociology at Reed, where he met his wife of nearly 56 years, Frances Ann Swift ’61. The couple moved to Chicago, where Rodney earned an MFA in sculpture and then a PhD in art history and archeology from the University of Chicago. He was a college professor in Wisconsin and Puerto Rico and at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, and the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee.

In 1978, Rod quit teaching to pursue sculpture full time in Burnsville, North Carolina, where he built a lovely house with a big sculpture studio. Twenty years later, he built an equally lovely house and studio in Norwood.

Rod and Ann loved singing in their church choir, and while serving on the music committee of their church in Burnsville, Rod raised the caliber of music to where the church choir was able to perform Handel’s Messiah and part of Brahms’s German Requiem. He was also interested in science and astronomy. He is survived by his wife, Ann, and his children, Enid and Edmund.

Appeared in Reed magazine: September 2020

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