13th Rosen Outdoor Sculpture Competition & Exhibition

Wisdom – Knowledge

Joseph Thompson
Athens, Georgia

Steel, Stone, and Found Objects. 14′ x 5′ x 5′

Artist statement

In this work, I am dealing with Boone as the site of a collision of cultures; an old Appalachian and essentially agrarian culture and a new culture of education and technology.

The form of the work in general is intended to capitalize on both the visual language the architecture which surrounds the sculpture and the idea of archeological strata as an indication of human activity on a specific site.

The text welded into each corner-post further delineates this concept of Boone as a point of contact between cultures, and asks the viewer to question what is gained and what is lost in terms of cultural values, esthetics, and identity.

Juror’s Comments

Responding to the visual references of the surrounding area, this year’s winner keyed into the distinct green metal roof of the campus architecture to culminate a formalized containment of rocks, farm implements, household relics, and a school desk. These are all assembled in an exposed stratification that calls to mind the geology, population, occupation, and institution previously and currently associated with the site.

Support Where Most Needed

Judy Strahota
Chicago, Illinois

Wood, Steel, and Firehose. 13′ x 13′ x 11′

Artist statement

I have always been inclined to build and do rather than read and write. Ultimately, this influenced my becoming a carpenter as a means of financing art making. Excelling in a non-traditional field has been a catalyst for my body of work made from wood. I use both new and used construction-grade lumber to employ traditional framing methods of housing construction which I re-work to create curvaceous forms of specific feminine iconography. Contemplation of gender differences, the traditions of domestic histories, and my personal experiences have greatly influenced my subject matter. Although my work stems from personal investigation, I endeavor towards a framework that allows others to filter the work through their own experience, thus inspiring a broader dialog about “self” and understanding others. While I seek a compatible mix of form and content, I approach my work from a viewpoint that is both aesthetic and feminist. I am inspired by potential and serendipity, and I believe the foundation of my art making lies in the combined strength of my building skills, command of the creative process, and powerful intuitive response. In challenging these skills I often find myself serving as a role model. My objectives include affirming women’s experiences through the framework of my own and creating work that stimulates and moves women to the forefront of both sculptural and functional construction.

Cathedral

Ann Melanie
Greenville, North Carolina

Steel. 4′ x 6′ 6″ x 10′

Artist statement

The rectilinear forms which make up the largest part of my work represent windows and doors. The windows look from my world into yours but keep us apart and doors allow passage through. These architectural references in my work are its conceptual base, and are founded in the development of both my private and public persona. Windows and doors are not literal images, but act as a symbolic reference to ideas, images, and emotions. Although my use of symbol is highly abstracted and not of a universal nature, the work can be understood on a purely formal level. The work is simple in its form and complex in its construction. My work is the sum of my life experiences; it has no specific meaning and it means everything.

About the artist

Ann Melanie, was born in Moses Lake Washington, her family is from Skowhegan Maine; Melanie received her MFA in sculpture in 1995 from East Carolina University. Her work includes gallery-scale and large public sculptures. Melanie uses simple forms that lend themselves to casting, carving and fabrication. She has shown throughout the United States in many venues, including the Rosen Outdoor Sculpture Competition, and The Pyramid Sculpture Park in Hamilton, Ohio. Her work is part of the permanent collection of the East Carolina Sculpture Park. She currently lives in Greenville, North Carolina where she is the academic advisor for the School of Art and Design at East Carolina University.

Channel Vessel

Adam Curtis
Jamestown, North Carolina

Carbon Steel. 10′ 6″ x 10′ 6″ x 13′

Artist statement

The ideas with which I am currently concerned involve objects that have interior spaces. The sculptures invite the viewer to enter and become an active participant. These works function well in a public context because they work as formal sculpture and yet are interactive. They address contemporary issues of site specificity and viewer engagement.

By opening the side or end of an abstract sculpture and creating an interior space with a new set of spatial experiences, the viewer gains a new perspective. Establishing architectural space with a form not found in architecture is one of my goals.

The sculpture aims to attract the viewer from a distance – it is large, unusual, eye-catching, suggesting a container or a head, a barrel or a hull frame, an unfinished building or ship and also something unseen before. The pieces are inspired, in part, by civil engineering. But as the viewer zeroes in on a piece, it reveals less of itself because of its scale and openness; the landscape around it is meant to be seen through the piece, not obscured.

Fool’s Ship

Tim Kussow
East Hartford, Connecticut

Steel and stones. 12′ x 9′ x 2′

Artist statement

Fool’s Ship, the object/finished product, was brought about by a sculptural performance of the same name. Simply put – the player/fool/myself is going through a labor-intensive, materials handling frenzy – putting myself out there and cracking the rocks manually. This fervor in finishing the piece – Fool’s Ship – in turn separates it (the object) from the artist. I, the fool, am controlling my own destiny, filling the ship with meaningless things – like the ballast in a ship. This skewed ship – a cornucopia of holding – encapsulates and mimics life in the way it contrasts the light/heavy tension that is always around us. The object combines form and idea – process and product. It is not in my nature to put everything out there and be vulnerable, as in an extroverted performance. Risk? Maybe. But I usually laugh at risk because it is too trivial and relative. This is a stretch for myself – breaking rocks – but it directly parallels the struggle, and the jumping through hoops I must do in the two systems that I live: Academia and Art. Obsession and passion go hand in hand when I am fully immersed in these systems, but remember; it is not enough to be genuine – to just make art – Art has to have meaning as does the “pile of rocks.”

Gethsemane

Shawn Morin
Bowling Green, Ohio

Limestone. 7′ 3″ x 8′ x 7′ 3″

Artist statement

Often times it is, in part, through our creative spirit that we are touched by and connected to our Creator and His Spirit. And while no artist or work of art can accurately or even adequately address the dimensions of the spiritual world, it is my hope that this work can somehow begin to promote and nurture the reality that in our life’s journey each of us inevitably must choose to either pass by or through Gethsemane.

About the artist

Just prior to receiving his B.F.A. in sculpture, Shawn Morin asked one of the professors he admired most: “So, do you think I have what it takes to be an artist”? Without missing a beat or bating an eye, he smiled and said, “NO, you don’t.” A few months later Morin entered the M.F.A. program as the University of Georgia in Athens as an “irregular undergrad,” which, when translated means, “we’ll let you enroll on a trial basis, take your money for a year and see what happens”. After successfully completing his first year in Athens, he was fully accepted into the masters program and granted an assistantship. However, a few weeks later he received a letter from the university stating that his assistantship was being revoked and that he was being asked to leave the university due to low GRE test scores. Nevertheless, Morin completed his M.F.A. the following year and at age 26 began his teaching career. Recently, he chaired a committee that abolished the GRE requirement for M.F.A. applicants at BGSU. The very next year, the number of graduate applications in the School of Art more than doubled.

Morin has just completed his nineteenth year as Head of the Sculpture Program at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. He has participated in more than 140 exhibitions throughout the country, and his work can be seen in 15 permanent public collections, and is included in over 35 private collections. Since 1992, nearly every one of Morin’s own graduate students are currently teaching in high schools, colleges, and universities around the country.

For more information, visit shawnmorinsculpture.com.

Jelly Belly

Greg Moring
Youngstown, Ohio

Steel. 14′ x 11′ x 10′

Artist statement

I have been working with monumental sculptural forms for many years. The integration of the sculptural object into a public space has been a central goal of my research. This process of integration begins with the idea that the sculpture must be responsive to its communal function and responsibility. It must not be so aggressive as to alienate its collective viewers, but be truly expressive and meaningful to the public at large. In fact, my work acquires many of its social meanings directly from its communal environment. The great value of public sculpture is that it can be considered a reflection of our contemporary society.

Leroy’s Night Crawler

Suzanne Fausette
West Hartford, Connecticut

Mild Steel. 176′

Artist statement

My outdoor linear works grew from a childhood need to escape the threats and neglect of a hostile environment. With longing and imagination, I would project myself out of my body, out of my situation, and into the world. From that painful time I retained the beautiful images gained while traveling the contours of a building or landscape, exploring all the possible patterns of movement.

As a sculptor my intention is to foster an interaction among the viewer, the sculpture, and the environment. After discovering the character of a place, I set about illustrating the inherent movements that I have learned to see and feel. The sculpture reacts to the contours and energy of the site. The viewer is invited to follow the movements of the sculpture either visually, physically, or both therefore connecting them in a new way to what may have previously been dismissed as just a hill.

Visiting beautiful North Carolina for the first time I began by asking people, “What is the nature of the mountains of North Carolina?” I was told about the wind, the drifting snow, and the rivers. Then I asked Leroy, a grounds keeper at ASU what he thought of my work in progress. He scratched his head and replied in a southern accent, “Well I’d sure hate to see the look on the robin’s face that swooped down to try and pick up this here night crawler!” He then told me all about the night crawlers and good fishing of North Carolina. This was the instinctive and honest response that I had been looking for!

Process

Rogelio Tijerina
Bayview, Texas

Cast bronze and found objects. 8′ x 8′ x 30′

Temple VII

Fr Austin Collins
Notre Dame, Indiana

Steel. 14′ x 4′ 6″ x 5′

Artist statement

In my recent work, The Temple Series, I hope to invoke in the viewer a sense of sacred space, of retreating, of reflection. By constructing a space with abstract geometric steel forms, referencing architecture, games, and toys, Temple VII generates a bodily response from both structural and compositional.

About the artist

Professor Austin Collins is a sculptor known for his large-scale metal work that draws on and extends the Modernist tradition. His work has been featured in 137 exhibitions and is included in over 57 public and private collections. He has also given 35 public lectures on his work at various institutions across the country.

Collins’s area of practice includes public art, large outdoor sculpture, installation art and liturgical art. The theme of his creative work often deals with political and social issues.

Collins has exhibitions at Northwestern University, University of Tennessee, University of Alabama, University of California and the University Virginia. He currently has work on view at: University of Alabama, City of Huntsville, AL Sacred Heart University Fairfield, CT, University of Toledo, Toledo, OH, Indiana University, South Bend, IN, City of Port Huron, MI, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC. Fernwood Botanical Garden & Nature Preserve, Niles, MI, Fredrik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, MI and Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH. His work has been reviewed and written about in publications such as Sculpture Magazine, The Chicago Sun-Times, New City Chicago, The Detroit News, The Indianapolis Star and Dialogue.

Collins Studied art at the University of California at Berkeley and received a M.F.A. in sculpture from Claremont Graduate University. Collins is currently a professor of sculpture at the University of Notre Dame, a position he has held for the past 29 years.

For more information, visit www3.nd.edu/~acollins.