Duane McDiarmid , Chair
Department Faculty List
View work by Sculpture graduate students
Our faculty has a deep commitment to their own work and the developing work of our students. The faculty's active and diverse involvement in their professional field affords them the ability to bring to students an articulated, informed, and contemporary critique of work. Our collective knowledge of the techniques, processes and equipment associated with the production of sculpture both traditional and exploratory has created a diverse and inclusive sculpture program. AS artist teachers the faculty tailors instruction to assure that the individual voice of the developing artists they work with are challenged, nurtured, enriched, and respected.
Mission Statement
The Sculpture faculty believes that techniques support concepts, and that students should embark as early as possible in defining their own direction through both their work in the studio and by nurturing their critical thought. The School of Art sculpture department is dedicated to exposing students to the extensive possibilities in sculpture. Instruction is founded in the use and operation of our facilities and equipment. Without dictating a singular axiom on how students might apply that knowledge and equipment they are encouraged to pursue their individual artistic vision. The faculty expects students to explore and research the widest possible variety of approaches and concepts, and encourages interdisciplinary work.
Sculpture students participate fully with the School of Art's extensive and prestigious visiting artists program, attending presentations and receiving individual critiques with artists like Vito Acconci, Charles Ray, Jessica Stockholder, Luis Jiminez, Jenny Holzer, Faith Ringhold, and Burt Barr, to name only a few.
The faculty has an impressive collection of professional accomplishments including two National Endowment for the Arts Grants, three Regional NEA Rockefeller Foundation ãNew Formsä grants, and seven State Arts Board Grants, as well as both public and private permanent public art commissions in several cities around the US. Their work has been reviewed in major newspapers across the country and in both regional and national art magazines. Members of the sculpture faculty have been selected to participate in prestigious residencies, including Art Park in upstate New York; The Headlands Center for the Arts, San Francisco; The Ragdale Foundation, Chicago; and Sculpture Space, Utica, New York.
Facilities
The sculpture department is housed in a 5,900 square foot sculpture building which contains fabrication space with assorted tables, hoists, and cranes; metal working equipment; modern two furnace foundry and support equipment; plaster area; conference room; and a fenced sculpture yard.
In the adjacent Seigfred Hall, the sculpture department has two rooms dedicated to semi-private graduate studios (approximately 250 square feet for each student) and faculty offices. Seigfred Hall also contains the School of Art's wood shop & tool room. The wood shop is available for use to all School of Art students, and is an instructional space for sculpture classes. The shop contains a wide variety of stationary and hand-held power tools for cutting, shaping and bending woods and plastics, an industrial sewing machine, and an extensive collection of specialized hand tools, jigs, and clamps.