Cathy Hopkins, sculptor, martial artist, and teacher, has died at 76
She taught for more than four decades at Fleisher Art Memorial and created memorable costumes and props for many Mummers parades.
Cathy Hopkins, 76, of Philadelphia, celebrated sculptor, fifth-degree black belt martial arts instructor, longtime teacher at Fleisher Art Memorial, and award-winning designer of Mummers costumes and props, died Thursday, Nov. 23, of cancer in Vitas hospice at Jefferson Methodist Hospital.
A lifelong artist and athlete, Ms. Hopkins sold a watercolor painting when she was 12 and a wax reclining figure as a freshman at Bryn Mawr College in 1965. She went on to earn a four-year certificate in sculpture at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1973, establish Cathy Hopkins Sculpture in 1974, teach sculpture at Fleisher Art Memorial for 46 years, and spend decades watching the Mummers strut on New Year’s Day in her costumes and bearing her props.
“Art has always been my thing,” she told The Inquirer in 2000.
Ms. Hopkins also played competitive squash and was a diver and dancer well into her 60s. She earned a black belt in karate in the late 1980s, opened Center City Karate in 1999, and taught martial arts classes until recently.
“Karate and sculpting, somehow it goes together,” she said. “They are both art forms. Sculpture, karate, they’re all about forms in space. And there’s a need to keep practicing, perfecting. It’s a process.”
Her sculpting process led Ms. Hopkins to display a variety of unique pieces at Fleisher in Queen Village, the Woodmere Art Museum, Franklin Institute, Wayne Art Center, and other venues in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, California, Tennessee, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Mexico, and Hong Kong.
She worked in bronze, clay, polyester resin, and other materials, and her most notable pieces may be her 1985 Arabesque and Layout depiction of her and her daughter on the facade at 250 S. Fifth Street, and her 1989 Tribute to Nursing statue at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center in West Philadelphia.
She also made commemorative coins for the Franklin Mint, miniature Revolutionary War figures for the Fort Lee Historical Museum, a 50-foot shark for an exhibit at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City, and sculptures of a fish, hawk, and bee for a museum in Hong Kong.
Her work was featured in 1986 when the Fleisher reopened its building on Catherine Street after renovations, and former Inquirer art critic Edward J. Sozanski said: “Cathy Hopkins made a pair of ‘lion masks’ that comment playfully on the unfinished lion supports for the sanctuary’s porch columns.”
She earned commissions to create pieces for display houses, restaurants, gift shops, and other outlets. She won awards for her public art in the 1980s and was lauded by Inquirer critics and the International Sculpture Center in Hamilton Township, N.J.
She began teaching at Fleisher in 1977 and never retired. She also taught at the Wayne Art Center and Perkins Center for the Arts in Moorestown. “Cathy touched many lives, including mine as a Fleisher student,” a longtime friend said.
In 1985, the captain of the Saturnalian Fancy Brigade needed extra help with his Mummers costumes, so he called on Ms. Hopkins. She wound up making 49 heads of nine different animals, and the brigade finished first in its competition. By 2000, she was working for 15 Mummers clubs and creating motorcycles, elephants, sphinxes and even a flying devil.
“These guys are creative, and the parade is their outlet,” she said. “They give me a sketch of what they want, and I make it.”
Born Sept. 24, 1947, in East Orange, N.J., Catherine Anne Pottow grew up in Morristown, N.J., and graduated from Bryn Mawr with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy in 1969. She married Samuel Hopkins in 1967, and they had daughter Augusta, and lived in Queen Village. They divorced later, and she moved to South Philadelphia.
Ms. Hopkins enjoyed swimming, played tennis, and skied. She did much of her work in a home studio and took up martial arts when her daughter became interested as a 12-year-old.
“I wasn’t particularly good at the beginning, but it was a good discipline, and you get involved,” Ms. Hopkins said. “It’s a path, and that’s emphasized during training. At each step, you’re always polishing yourself.”
Her daughter said: “She was a powerful force who inspired me to follow my heart.”
In addition to her daughter and former husband, Ms. Hopkins is survived by a brother and other relatives.
A celebration of her life is to be held at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, May 18, at Fleisher Art Memorial, 719 Catharine St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19147.
Donations in her name may be made to Spiritual Friends Sangha at the San Francisco Dharma Collective, Augusta Hopkins, 2929 24th St., San Francisco, Calif. 94110.