A new art gallery show, "Break Away," celebrating women's empowerment in honor of International Women's Month
Bobbi will speak at 11.00 AM on Sunday April 17th 2021 at Haynes Auditorium in Boston
Meet Bobbi Gibb, the first woman to run and win the Boston Marathon (1966, '67, '68) at this special book launch at the Charles Fine Arts Gallery in Gloucester, MA.. This special book was written by authors Kristina Yee and Frances Poletti in close collaboration with Bobbi. It is newly released by Compendium. It's appeal is to young people in particular.
“Women cannot run marathons. It’s against the rules.” Poletti and Yee neatly evoke the joy some find in running, simply running. Gibb “ran with her pack, going higher and higher, / the world whooshing by, like the wind in the fire.” Such couplets are found every few pages, the last four words the refrain. Readers gain a sense of the experience through Chapman’s artwork, the light-footed energy of the watercolors slipping outside the pen’s fine line, a veil of wind trailing behind Gibb. Halfway through the race her ruse is up. She is boiling in her hoodie and confides to a fellow marathoner, a black man, that she is afraid of ejection. “We won’t let anyone throw you out; it’s a free road.”
Well-told and illustrated, Gibb’s story speaks to not only women’s fight for equality, but the power of community (Kirkus Review)
At this event, Bobbi will briefly read from the book and sign books, posters and share her artwork now on display at Charles Fine Arts. Parent, children, grandparents all welcome! Books will be for sale in collaboration with the Bookstore of Gloucester. Event co-sponsored by several community groups including Cape Ann Art Haven, the Sawyer Free Library, and seARTS.
http://www.northshoreymca.org/programs/healthy-living/road-races/other-y-road-races/around-the-cape-25k/
seARTS Cape Ann and The Hive co-present a panel discussion, book signing, and reception for Bobbi. Leading the panel, renowned author of The History of the Boston Marathon, Tom Derderian, with Bobbi Gibb and special guests TBA. Tom has been a leading authority for the official Boston: The Film now being produced for a 2017 release date. He had known Bobbi for many years and will lead a discussion about her story and his own involvement with the running community.
More: http://bostonmarathonfilm.com/team/tom-derderian/ The panel discussion will be followed by a books signing of multiple books and a reception to enjoy meeting Bobbi and Tom.
Join Bobbi and friends for this exciting show of the complete collection of her works on Cape Ann at the Cape Ann Museum's White Ellery House on Grant Circle.
Today, all anybody needs to run is the determination and a pair of the right shoes. But just fifty years ago, running was viewed almost exclusively as the domain of elite male athletes who competed on tracks. With insight and propulsive energy, director Pierre Morath traces running’s rise to the 1960s, examining how the liberation movements and newfound sense of personal freedom that defined the era took the sport out of the stadiums and onto the streets. Join Bobbi at Cape Ann Community Cinema to share this movie and hear her own "firsts" as Boston's own Marathon champion and pioneer. Click here for more info & tickets! https://capeanncinema.wordpress.com/special-event-free-to-run-with-special-guest-bobbi-gibb/
In April of this year, the Boston Athletic Association celebrated 50 years of women running and acknowledged that the first female runners were in fact “pioneers.” A new medallion was painted on Boylston Street to acknowledge this important milestone in athletic history.
At the very core of this social change movement was a woman from Rockport – Roberta Louise Gibb – known internationally as Bobbi Gibb. Bobbi was recognized for her place in history and given role as the Grand Marshal at this year’s event. Since Gibb’s pioneering run in 1966, a total of 176,466 women have completed the Boston Marathon. In fact 9.7M are estimated to be running across the world today – 57% of the total running population as reported by RunningUSA.
Bobbi’s story has also been told exquisitely in many Marathon media segments and in Amby Burfoot’s new book, First Ladies of Running: 22 Inspiring Profiles of the Rebels, Rule Breakers, and Visionaries Who Changed the Sport Forever. It’s now time for her home communities –Rockport (her current home), Winchester (her birth place), and Marblehead, childhood residence – to hear the story in their back yard and see firsthand how Bobbi’s vision and passions have populated her research, writing, and art work. Among the special events is an up close and personal conversation with Bobbi and Tom Derderian. Tom Derderian is a former New England road race champion who ran in the Olympic Trials in both 1972 and 1976. He is the author of the award-winning book The Boston Marathon: The First Century of the World’s Premier Running Event and The Boston Marathon: A Century of Blood, Sweat, and Cheers. He lives in Winthrop, Massachusetts.
This special series of events are also a chance to show support for the Bobbi Gibb Marathon Sculpture Project. This endeavor was launched in partnership with the 26.2 Foundation and will permanently recognize Bobbi’s place in running history. The effort is endorsed by Joan Benoit Samuelson and 11 other Boston Marathon champions The project’s goal is to raise funds to erect a sculpture of Gibb on the Boston Marathon course. The sculpture will be created by Gibb herself to show a woman in her 1966 likeness running strong and confidently.
“As the first woman to finish the Boston Marathon, Bobbi Gibb opened up the door for all of us who followed,” notes Samuelson, a two-time Boston champ (1979, 1983) and winner of the first Olympic Marathon for women in 1984. “Without her courage and determination, we might never have gained the chance.”
Gibb is an accomplished painter and sculptor who studied at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in the mid-1960s--at the same time that she began running longer distances. “For 50 years, it has been my dream to sculpt a life-size woman runner to represent all the fantastic women who have run Boston since 1966,” says Gibb. "I hope it will inspire many girls and women to run strong."
Join us to celebrate Rockport’s Bobbi Gibb at any or all of these events all being held in Gloucester, MA.
Kick-off Bobbi Gibb Marathon Sculpture Project Event:
SUNDAY: August 28th: 6:30 PM Cape Ann Community Cinema presents Free to Run: Movie Premier & Fundraiser: with special guest Bobbi Gibb. Join Bobbi to share this movie and hear her own "firsts" as Boston's own Marathon champion and pioneer. Tickets are $25 with proceeds supporting the Bobbi Gibb Marathon Sculpture Project! Book here: https://capeanncinema.wordpress.com/special-event-free-to-run-with-special-guest-bobbi-gibb/
Labor Day Weekend:
SATURDAY: September 3rd, 11AM-3PM Cape Ann Museum’s White Ellery House 245 Washington Street (@Grant Circle) presents 26.2 Expressions: Nature, Science & Dreams – The Art of Bobbi Gibb - for the first time ever, all of Bobbi’s works will be shown together – paintings, sculpture, and murals.
4:30-6:30 PM: The Hive 11 Pleasant Street. seARTS Cape Ann and The Hive co-present a panel discussion, book signing and reception for Bobbi. Leading the panel, renowned author of The History of the Boston Marathon, Tom Derderian, with Bobbi Gibb and special guests TBA.
Book-signing to Include:
Pre-Signed copies of Amby Burfoot’s First Ladies of Running
Bobbi Gibb To Boston with Love and Wind in the Fire.
MONDAY: September 5th: O’Maley School, Washington Street. Bobbi will kick off the North Shore YMCA Around the Cape Ann Road Race & host a tent for runners to get signed copies of Bobbi’s 50th Anniversary poster and First Ladies of Running.
Find out more: www.bobbigibbart.net
Facebook (logo): https://www.facebook.com/bobbiGibbMarathonSculptureProject/
Donate: http://www.26-2.org/initiatives/bobbi-gibb-marathon-sculpture-project1/
Presented in collaboration with: Cape Ann Community Cinema, Cape Ann Museum, Cape Ann YMCA, seARTS Cape Ann, and The Hive Cape Ann
"50 Years of Women at Boston" Celebration Continues at June 26 Race as Bobbi Gibb will Reunite with 2016 Boston Marathon Champion Atsede Baysa
On April 19, 1966 Bobbi Gibb made marathon history. Exactly fifty years to the day later, join Bobbi, the editors at Women’s Running and the Tracksmith team as we retrace her steps: right on Hereford, left on Boylston. Discussion and refreshments in the gallery to follow.
Attendees will have to opportunity to meet and mingle with Gibb and other Boston Marathon champions who are supporting the sculpture project, including Amby Burfoot, the 1968 winner and Runner’s World Editor at Large, and the legendary four-time winner of the Boston Marathon Bill Rodgers. Burfoot will also be available for a book signing of his latest book, “First Ladies of Running”. “We believe it is long past time to recognize the Boston Marathon’s great women runners,” says Tim Kilduff, of the 26.2 Foundation. “The fact that Boston’s first woman runner is also a great sculptor makes this project absolutely unique and appropriate.
Artist, athlete and author, Gibb defies professional pigeonholing. Half a century after her momentous run from Hopkinton to Boston, Tracksmith is celebrating her varied and groundbreaking career.
Bobbi Gibb has donated two of her mixed media paintings to the prestigious ARTRAGEOUS30! auction to be held this coming April 2nd. Her pieces are entitled "Purple & Gold Swirls" and "Cosmic Plan." Montserrat is located in Beverly, MA. not far from Bobbi's home base of Rockport, MA. Montserrat is a small, independent college dedicated to collaboration with the communities that surround it and encouraging life-long pursuit of cultural enrichment.
