B. Amore vividly remembers the moment she began making art again nearly five decades ago. She had two children, little money and precious little free time. But she hungered to try carving and had just been given a block of redwood by a sculpture teacher. Sitting on the floor of her Boston apartment, a blanket spread out before her, the wood lay nestled in a cushion.

“I was beginning to carve and I stopped, put my hands on it. Oh my God, this is a place I haven’t touched since I was 5 years old. How can I make it real?” she recalled of that charged feeling.