America’s First Sculptor and Revolutionary Spy Image: Portrait of Patience Lovell Wright Patience Lovell was born on Long Island in 1725 to well-to-do Quakers, and moved with her family to Bordentown, New Jersey, at age four. Patience discovered her talent for sculpting at an early age. She and her sisters shaped wet flour or clay. When the sculptures were dry, they used plant extracts to paint them. In 1748, she married Joseph Wright, an elderly Quaker farmer, who was a landowner and spent much of his time away from home taking care of his properties. Patience and Joseph had three children, and for years she amused herself and her children by molding faces out of putty and bread dough.
