Remarkable Women in New York History by Helen Engel

Author:Helen Engel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Published: 2013-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

Blaszczyk, Regina. Imagining Consumers: Design and Innovation from Wedgwood to Corning. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.

———. Where Mrs. Homemaker Is Never Forgotten: Lucy Maltby and Home Economics at the Corning Glass Works, 1929–1965. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997.

The Leader. “Lucy Maltby Brings Home-Economics to Glass Works.” August 22 and 23, 1994.

Researcher and author: Onalee Nixon, Bath Branch

ANTOINETTE (ANNETTE) MARTEN

1943–

ARTIST

Culture sometimes dictates what a child shall be called. Such was the case with Antoinette Pensabene, born on September 29, 1943, in Brooklyn, New York, the eldest of three children. According to family tradition, she was named for her paternal grandmother but became known to her siblings, family and friends as Annette.

After graduation from high school, family health issues necessitated postponing advanced studies. Annette’s skills as a secretary to a vice-president of a Wall Street firm filled several years before her marriage to Thomas Marten. Before the birth of her last child, she achieved her associate’s degree from the College of Staten Island as a participant in the ARC program called Adults Returning to College.

Annette and Tom relocated to Huguenot, Staten Island, in 1970, where they reared their four offspring. The boys, following in their father’s footsteps, achieved the rank of lieutenant in the New York Police Department. The Fashion Institute of Technology became the source of furthering the innate talent of their two daughters. Thus was woven the close-knit family that remains. Holidays mean a gathering of children, grandchildren and sometimes extended family at the Martens’ home. This same familial camaraderie is enjoyed in a yearly vacation trip to Rehoboth Beach in Delaware. It’s a time cherished for the memories it engenders.

As one of Staten Island’s accomplished artists, Annette’s interest began in her childhood with her penchant for coloring. Her interest became a desire when she admired a painting and thought, “Maybe I can do that.” That she could is evidenced by her talent in many media, among them oil, watercolor, collage and printmaking, all of which were enhanced by studying oils at the College of Staten Island and printmaking at the Art Lab at Snug Harbor Cultural Center. Attendance at the Art Students League and the National School of Design in Manhattan allowed practice and refinement of her ability.

One of Annette’s achievements is a first-prize award for her watercolor Poppy and Me in the 1999 International Year of the Older Persons. As added prestige, it has been placed in a time capsule at the College of Staten Island to be opened in the year 2049.

Stories of the presentation of the watercolors Walkers Point, A Rainy Day at Walkers Point and Autumn at Walkers Point to our forty-first president, George H. Bush, appeared in the Staten Island Advance. At the Texas A&M College Library, they are timeless reminders of Annette’s vacation at Kennebunkport, Maine.

Her art has been used in a fundraiser for the Ronald McDonald House in Alabama, and signed, limited-edition prints of her Bridging the Gap, have raised donations from private parties for various Staten Island organizations, as well as $2,000 to aid the victims of the 2004 tsunami disaster.

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