Nude snow sculpture in Rahway leads police to request 'snowlady' cover-up

By Eliot Caroom/For the Star-Ledger

March 03, 2010, 5:30AM

 
Photos courtesy Conneran family

 A snowlady that Maria Conneran and her family sculpted in front of their Rahway home that attracted passers-by on Rahway's Colonia Boulevard to stop for pictures, but prompted an anonymous complaint to police who had the family cover up the sculpture with clothing.
RAHWAY --She was a frosty Venus de Milo, but one Rahway family’s snow-packed tribute to the Greek goddess of love and beauty was another person’s pornography.
Maria Conneran and her family worked feverishly to fashion their armless, nude snowlady from last week’s heap of snow, grabbing attention and photographs on Rahway’s Colonia Boulevard.
Not all the attention was good, however.

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Among the visitors was a patrolman dispatched to the Conneran household after Rahway police received an anonymous complaint "of a naked snow woman," said Sgt. Dominick Sforza. She sure was, the family gleefully agreed.
"Curvaceous, bodacious and booty-licious," said Elisa Gonzalez, a court reporter who built the snow goddess with her daughter, Maria Conneran, 21 and son, Jack Shearing, 12.
"But she had a six-pack!" Conneran said.
Photo courtesy Conneran family

 A snowlady that Maria Conneran (pictured) and her family sculpted in front of their Rahway home that attracted passers-by on Rahway's Colonia Boulevard to stop for pictures, but prompted an anonymous complaint to police.
When the officer arrived, Gonzalez said, he was apologetic and appreciative of the snowlady and her assets.
"He said, ‘It’s very good,’" Gonzalez recalled.
Despite his appreciation, the officer then asked the family to dress the snowlady. Nonplussed, they complied with a green bikini top and a blue sarong around her ample hips.
 
Photo courtesy Conneran familyJack Shearing, 12, and his mother, Elisa Gonzalez with the nude snowlady.


"I thought she looked more objectified and sexualized after you put the bikini on," Gonzalez said.
Conneran and Gonzalez said the visit from police reminded them of former Attorney General John Ashcroft’s move to drape a semi-nude statue of the Spirit of Justice when he arrived to lead the U.S. Justice Department.
"(Our snowlady) looks like marble. It looks like a statue," Conneran said. "Are you going to go to the Met and cover up all the statues?"
William Torres, visiting the neighborhood from North Carolina, agreed the snowlady should have remained au naturel.
"They’re censoring art," Torres said. "To me ... that’s no different from what you see in a museum ... and its lifespan was short anyway."
Indeed. On Monday, the family took down the snowlady, because with the return of warmer weather, she was starting to melt away.
The Venus di Milo may be gone, but the Connerans said they will continue their work with the next snow. This was not their first foray into famous snow sculpture.
Last January, the family created a realistic bust of newly inaugurated President Obama.
 
People in a passing car stop to take a photo of a snow sculpture of a female torso on a lawn in Rahway.