By Rita A. Fucillo, Art New England, March 2016
Her passion may be running yet contemporary artist and sculptor Bobbi Gibb has never run from anything in her life. In fact, her existence is a series of running toward, well, everything, as fast as humanly possible. She began running at age four “and never stopped.” Running wild through the woods as a child to explore nature; running to help spark the women’s movement in 1966 by crashing the Boston Marathon disguised as a man and finishing it (“unofficially” winning it three times before women were permitted to race); running toward a career in medicine and neuroscience research; running to paint, sculpt and study the human body and its limitless capabilities; and running toward a law degree to provide for her son. Bobbi Gibb never ceases running forward and that, one can argue, is how Gibb pursues her art. Hers is a life spent in pursuit of itself, its fullest potential. For Gibb, this drive has manifested itself in an extraordinary academic career in law and medicine; in sculpture, paintings and books; and in that brazen, historic 1966 Boston Marathon run which celebrates its 50th anniversary this spring. All elements of Gibb’s existence deliver the same message: Do. Reach. Live.