Community

The ASU Herberger College School of Art sculpture program is engaged with the Phoenix community and with the national and international art community through a range of initiatives. Phoenix arts professionals collaborate with the sculpture program as exhibitors, curators, seminar guests, professional development panelists, graduate committee members. They work with our students on student exhibitions, internships, employment, commissions, competitions in places of business and through the sponsorship of local arts and industry related businesses.  The sculpture faculty stay in communication with regional museum directors and curators. Students are invited to community visits and discussions, and arts professionals are invited into the sculpture classes.

The work of sculpture students is shown frequently at community, and even national and international venues. These include The Ice House, First Avenue Gallery, the Eye Lounge, 1505 Gallery, Monorchid Gallery, the Tempe Library, Wet Paint Art Gallery and Rezurrection Gallery. The neon workshop has shown at the Mesa Arts Center Sound in the Ground events and traveling exhibitions, including the Museum for Neon Art in Los Angeles and overseas in Japan, Taiwan, and the UK. Sculpture students and program graduates have participated in exchange exhibitions with the University of Iowa and the Edinburgh College of Art and are in individual and group shows too numerous to mention. The graduate student-curated exhibition Desire for Normality, which started at the Step Gallery is currently traveling to various universities around the country, including Pacific Northern University and University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Students have taken advantage of many opportunities to create public art. For the past three years, ASU students have won $1,500-$3,500 temporary public art commissions through the Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture annual public competition. Private sponsorship afforded $6,000 in temporary on-campus student commission funding for academic years 2005-07. Previously commissioned work stands in front of the Thunderbird Cylinder Corporation on University Ave. ASU students show regularly in the annual Arizona Student Sculpture Competition sponsored by the Spanish Village Sculpture Garden in Carefree, the City of Prescott Outdoor Sculpture Competition, the Pima College Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition and Galleries, and the Burning Man Festival. A piece for Prescott Valley Steel stands near the freeway on Chandler Blvd. ASU sculpture student-created bicycle racks have been placed in Tempe.