After a Parkinson's diagnosis, Suzanne Posner turned to sculpting. She's inspiring many.

It was time for Suzanne Posner to make her rounds, so she grabbed her tools and approached the rows of patients. 

Except Posner, a former Great Neck dentist, was not wearing a white coat or wielding a sickle probe. She was forced to retire about two decades ago after a mysterious illness, which she later learned was Parkinson's. She turned her attention to sculpting, which she found calms her mind — and has some similarities to dentistry.

"Your patients lay their heads in your lap, practically, and you take care of them," Posner said of her former vocation. Now, she spends hours pounding and shaping rocks into emblems of living beings, such as sea creatures and birds. 

On Wednesday, two days before the close of her "Swim or Fly" exhibit at the Great Neck Library, Posner flitted from sculpture to sculpture, most of which she carved from alabaster, gently dusting and adjusting the works. 

"It takes my mind off of everything," Posner said. "If you're a beginning stone sculptor, you're amazed at how the time goes by, where all you're thinking about doing is making a nice shape."

Posner, who grew up in Great Neck, loved working as a dentist. But around 2006, she said, she noticed she was dragging her foot while walking. She was wracked with fatigue. It became difficult to work. She was first diagnosed with primary lateral sclerosis, a rare motor neuron disease that makes it difficult to control voluntary muscle activity. Then, in 2011, came the Parkinson's diagnosis.

She took a sculpting class to fill up some time, and soon realized she had a knack for the craft.

Sometimes, while sculpting, she'll get "tired, awkward, I lose my balance." That's the Parkinson's. So she'll sit in a lounge chair, talk to a friend and take her medication. Then, after about a half-hour, she'll "get up and start it again."

Guy Schwartz, director of the Stony Brook Parkinson’s and Movement Disorders Center, said in an interview that individuals with Parkinson's often become "more reclusive." Art classes can offer a pathway to social engagement, he noted. 

He said symptoms such as fatigue, or an off-kilter gait, can lead to individuals being "self-conscious of their symptoms, and they begin to withdraw socially," Schwartz said. "Class participation in art is extremely important, because individuals with Parkinson's are looking for activities outside of their home. They can be quite focused on their disease."

Posner also teaches sculpture at the Cumberland Adult Center in Great Neck. Rita Chess, 68, of Great Neck, has been taking classes with Posner for years. 

"She's an inspiration to anyone," Chess said. "When you're living with progressive, neurological disease, it's very difficult to do almost anything. For her to stick with something that she loves, and brings her so much joy, but is physically difficult, but she pushes through, it's really amazing."

Rebecca Sassouni, a former Great Neck school board trustee and a friend of the artist, said she admires how Posner "is able to take something difficult, and make it look easy." Sassouni, an attorney, often works with children with special needs.

"When I meet someone who has such a great attitude, and is obviously so bright, and is able to have such a great disposition about it all, and has such talent, it's really quite wonderful," Sassouni said.

Posner said she doesn't have a favorite sculpture, though she does have a fondness for "Goldie," a three-dimensional goldfish that sits above her piano at home. It's a reminder of the craft that keeps her going.

"I don't like there to be a day when I don't create anything," she said. 

By Joshua Needelman

joshua.needelman@newsday.com

Joshua Needelman covers the Town of North Hempstead for Newsday. A Long Island native and University of Maryland graduate, his work has appeared in publications including The New York Times and The Washington Post.