While most seniors wait at the mailbox for their Social Security check, Tony Falcone, 76, and his wife, Judi Andrews, 78, took on a $167,000 contract to construct a seven-foot, multi-ton bronze statue for the Town of Middlebury. Instead of slowing down, the couple leapt into one of the largest projects of their long careers, pouring their talent and teamwork into a monument that will honor the French soldiers who passed through Middlebury during the Revolutionary War.
Falcone and Andrews live a modest life in Cheshire and maintain a rented studio in Prospect. From the outside, their days may seem ordinary—commuting to work, balancing deadlines, meeting with clients. But what sets them apart is that they are doing it all in their late seventies, with an energy and devotion that might exhaust those half their age.
Tony is every inch the free-spirited artist. Charismatic and expressive, he is never happier than when he is shaping clay in his studio, refining the figure of a soldier inch by inch until the spirit of the work begins to emerge. Yet artistry on this scale requires more than a studio. To understand how the finished statue will “feel” in its setting, Tony and Judi hauled full-size mockup pieces—cardboard and styrofoam—out onto the grass at Meadowview Park. Side by side, they tested the statue’s posture, its balance, and its presence in the open landscape.
Judi is more than the business manager of Falcone Art Studio. She keeps the contracts, manages the schedules, and runs the books, but she also works hand in hand with Tony at every stage. Friends say she is his muse as well as his manager, the one who inspires and steadies him. Their devotion to each other shows not just in the artwork but in the way they carry themselves together: a couple in love, still making something new in their later years.
Their current project, commissioned by the Middlebury Historical Society, will depict a French infantryman struggling up the steep terrain of Breakneck Hill, where Rochambeau’s troops camped in 1781 and 1782. Cast in bronze with a warm patina and set on a granite base, the monument will be the centerpiece of a new memorial plaza at Meadowview Park.
The Falcone Art Studio has never been a big operation—just two people working side by side. Yet together, Tony and Judi show that the art of not retiring may be the most inspiring art of all.
All images courtesy of the Middlebury Historical Society.
