The Rosen Sculpture Competition and Exhibition is a national juried competition presented annually by An Appalachian Summer Festival and the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts. Since its establishment by Martin and Doris Rosen in 1987, the Rosen Competition continues a tradition of showcasing contemporary American sculpture in outdoor settings across the beautiful campus of Appalachian State University.
The competition, in its 36th year, has become firmly established as a cultural treasure and a significant point of pride for Appalachian State University and our entire region. The competition has garnered national praise for the free access to the “best of the best” in contemporary sculpture it offers for countless residents and visitors across North Carolina and beyond.
The Rosen Family proudly continues the legacy of Martin and Doris by generously supporting this important program dedicated to sharing the power and joy of public art, creating a fascinating glimpse into the world of contemporary sculpture, and building new audiences for the visual arts.
This program is made possible by the generous support of the Martin & Doris Rosen Giving Fund/Debbie Rosen Davidson and David Rosen and the Charles & Nancy Rosenblatt Foundation.
36th Rosen Sculpture Competition finalists
First Place Award, Andrew Light, Divergent
Second Place Award, Susan Moffatt, Sinuosity II
Third Place Award, Kevin Curry, Lost and Found
Honorable Mention, Kevin Eichner, Mei Amour
Sculptures
Sinuosity II, 2020
Susan Moffatt
Chapel Hill, NC
Marble on granite base
62″ x 26″ x 28″
Artist statement
The driving impulse of my work is a desire to capture perishable organic forms in stone. Often we come across small details – an emerging bud, a piece of fluted coral, a seed pod that dried in a surprising way, the depths of a flower calyx – and find them exquisitely beautiful. I want to preserve these finds in a way that magnifies their beauty. My aim is to reduce the form to its bare essentials so that the work tends towards abstraction while retaining is organic quality.
About the artist
After a professional career as an industrial designer with IBM, Susan turned her creative energies to sculpting. It was a last-minute decision to accompany an artist friend to Carrara, Italy to study marble carving in 2005 that set her on a new path. She fell in love with marble’s beauty and mailability and is fascinated by the earth history that it reveals. Susan’s work has been widely shown and awarded in numerous public art exhibitions and resides in several private collections. Her work is widely recognized by its sensuous, organic forms in brilliant white marble. This is the third time her work has been a finalist in the Rosen Sculpture Completion. She lives and works in Chapel Hill, NC.
Man, I Feel Like a Woman, 2021
Jackie Braitman
Takoma Park, MC
Marine mahogany
84″ x 73″ x 34″ x 6’ x 4’
Artist statement
Based on the music of Shania Twain, this piece celebrates everyday superwomen. As with all the pieces in this series, the work started with a 24” high wax model of the figure — just the figure not including any clothing or hair. The model is then digitized. The digital mesh file is then manipulated — scaled, clothing and hair added, abstracted, and sliced. The slats that compose the figure emphasize the motion of the figure. The fabrication includes use of a CNC machine — essentially a computerized router.
The piece took approximately 8 weeks of full-time effort to produce. It is fully water-resistant. The wood is marine-grade Okoume Mahogany Plywood — wood that’s usually used for boat-building. All glues and screws are fully water resistant.
Listen to the inspiration: I urge you to play the song and scroll through the images or watch the video (sound off).
About the artist
I’m a full-time sculptor – Using Material, Scale & Abstraction to Explore the Human Female Body in Motion. I’m enthralled by the power and grace of the human body in motion — and completely absorbed by the challenge of capturing that essence in a static sculpture. As is obvious from my work, what drives me is the idea and not a medium or style. In fact, experimenting with material, scale and form is what helps me in this exploration.
Sculpture is completely integrated in my life. The studio takes up the entire first floor of my bungalow in historic Takoma Park, MD. I work with the doors open and welcome the constant pedestrian traffic of neighbors. The lower and upper levels — award-winning, much-toured spaces — are light-filled, private havens with purpose-built indoor/outdoor spaces. These spaces are remnants of my previous design/remodeling practice which I ran for over 15 years.
I think of my current focus on fine-art sculpture as Act 7. Previous acts included the design/remodeling practice mentioned, above, software development, corporate management, policy research, and public service. While these might seem quite disparate, the common thread is my nature as an agent of change. When I was younger, I welcomed the challenge of improving the performance of organizations. As I got a bit older, I welcomed the challenge of improving the lives of homeowners. Now, I’m pursuing a more selfish challenge to explore my life-long attraction to the beauty and power of the human form in motion.
My formal education formed a way of looking at and working within the world that has greatly influenced my art and design. Ph.D., Decision Analysis, The Rand Graduate School, Santa Monica, CA, 1983. B.A., Government, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 1974.
For more information: https://www.jackiebraitman.com
The Window, 2022
Wayne Vaughn
Graham, NC
Steel
4’ x 10’ x 18’
Artist statement
Nature and industry inspire my work. I strive to bring animation, balance and intrigue to my work, playing with gravity, but keeping trust between the piece and its landscape. My hope is that my work invites the viewer to play, question, and respond. It is a great honor to have my work recognized. I love to bring animation to cold hard steel. My greatest satisfaction is bringing a smile, inciting a conversation or inspiring a new creation.
About the artist
Wayne Vaughn is a builder, musician and sculptor. As an apprentice to a master carpenter, Vaughn enjoyed a successful building career that spanned four decades. Music plays an important part in his life as founding member of the 30-year-old Triangle Brass Band. Rooted in this combination of physical skill and know-how, dedication, and creative pursuit, his career as sculptor was fostered. Very quickly his bold, geometric, large-scale works began winning awards and the attention of regional and national shows.
This is the fourth time Vaughn has been a Rosen Sculpture Competition finalist.
For more information, visit www.thesculpturefarm.com.
Silver Sage, 2022
David Boyajian
New Fairfield, CT
Stainless Steel
10’ x 8’ x 5’
Artist statement
An iconic form is created in the moments when nature deconstructs itself. A seed caught in the wind. The green shoots of a wildflower pushing through the soil. The thrashing of a river after heavy rains. A surge of energy spurs a separation – a great unfolding. It is these naturally sculptural moments that inspire my work.
The physical act of creating sculpture requires a great deal of energy. I create and alter structures until they find balance and become entities unto themselves. This process often begins in drawing, a much more cerebral and immediate medium connecting the hand to the mind. Both sculpture and drawing can find completion in a natural, unadorned state, or a piece may ask for added dynamism and emotion in a layer of bright orange powder-coat or rich scarlet pastels.
The elements of nature are present in all my work, from personal to private and public commissions. In creating public art, I am one of many authors writing the history of man’s existence, and that of his attempt to rationally construct and give relevance to his emotional, physical, and spiritual connection to the world. This endeavor continually brings me back to the cycle of nature and its poignant synchronicity to human evolution.
About the artist
David Boyajian is an artist, art instructor, and the owner of David Boyajian Sculpture Studio in New Fairfield, Connecticut. In the early 1980s, Boyajian studied at Alfred University, the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and earned his MFA from the Maryland Institute Rinehart School of Sculpture. Following his fine art education, Boyajian continued his studies while assisting figurative sculptors Wolfgang Behl, Elbert Weinberg, and Andrew Coppola.
Over the course of his thirty-plus-year career, Boyajian has shown his work in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including SculptureNow on The Mount, Edith Wharton’s home in Lenox, MA, Bull City Sculpture Show in Durham, NC, and ‘Genesis,’ an outdoor solo show at the Robert Moses Sculpture Garden at Fordham University. ‘Genesis’ received praise from both The New York Times and Review Magazine. “Boyajian’s buds and seeds rise well above the usual dross,” wrote Grace Glueck of The Times. This is the fourth time Boyajian has been a finalist in the Rosen Sculpture competition and he won 3rd place in two of those competitions.
Boyajian’s numerous public commissions include “The Weaving Shuttle” and “The Eye of the Needle” at the Mansfield Town Square in Mansfield, CT, “Lift,” a memorial to a former student at the Canterbury School in New Milford, and “Sanctuary” at the 9/11 Living Memorial at Sherwood Island for the state of Connecticut. His teaching career has spanned over twenty years at institutions such as Western Connecticut State University, Silvermine School of Art, and Hartford Art School at the University of Hartford. Boyajian’s teaches metal, stone, and wood sculpture at his studio at David Boyajian Sculpture Studio.
For more information: www.davidboyajian.com
Longing for Santa Croce, 2022
Shawn Morin
Bowling Green, OH
Granite
55″ x 15″ x 16″
Artist statement
Think of art is as the beginning of a conversation between artist and viewer, where artwork is a visual “hello.” Viewers engage in that conversation by responding to the piece or to other viewers, often igniting other sparks of inspiration.
About the artist
Shawn Morin received his BFA from the University of Tampa and his MFA from the University of Georgia, both in sculpture. He is currently a professor of sculpture and department head at Bowling Green State University. He has been featured in numerous solo, two-person, juried, group and invitational shows across the Midwest and eastern United States. He is represented in galleries in Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan and North Carolina as well as in public and private collections. This is his 8th time as a finalist in the Rosen Sculpture Competition including a 2nd place winner in the 30th Rosen Competition.
Here to There, 2022
Matthew Newman
Damascus, VA
Recycled #2 plastic, locust
42″ x 29″’ x 9″ each
Artist statement
My intention as a woodworker stated at age 12: “I want to design and build beautiful things from wood.” At the time it was just something that I thought I wanted to do; now I know that it is who I am. The goal is to stimulate imagination, provoke thought, and inspire others: thru the celebration of a visual experience. This is challenging but communicating three dimensionally and validating interpretations are key in establishing an open mind. Encouragement and being exposed to a visual image is the impetus of our future innovations. Here, in support of free-thinking inquisitiveness, the celebration begins. Three Dimensionally; no words, paint or sound; a form that can exist in no other way; completely the right size, but containing growth; still, yet having movement; quiet with real vitality.
About the artist
A woodworker most of his life, the small red vise that he uses today is the same vise that clamped his first piece of wood over fifty years ago. In 1976, after graduating with a BFA degree from Tufts University and a diploma from the Museum School of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, Matthew started a 5-year sawmill apprenticeship with master sawyer Stanley Stephenson, in Stow, MA. From tall tales to details he trained to be a sawyer. Newman Lumber started in 1981 running through 2011, providing quality material to fellow woodworkers, all the time honing skills and broadening his vision.
In 1985, he created the “Newman Basket” which has since been awarded a U.S. Design Patent by the United States Patent office. They continue to be in production and have been sold around the world. Collected and prized by museum, municipal and individual clients, his work goes from tiny to tremendous, playful to intense. In 2013 he moved to Damascus VA, bought the old hardware store and started “Trails ARTware”, a working studio/gallery for Matthew and a few friends.
For more information: www.asthesawturns.com
Mei Amour, 2020
Kevin Eichner
Mondcure, NC
Reclaimed steel
4’ x 5’ x 9’2″
Artist statement
My work evolves from the stiff, ridged, industrial I-beam, an icon of the 20th century, typically used in the construction of vast bridges and towering skyscrapers. As a sculptor, I search to understand the truth to the materials and strive to discover ways to stretch and manipulate that truth bringing forth its potential in new ways. I have discovered the breath within the beams, an understanding of how the structural nature of the material frees itself of it’s industrial function, allowing the material to blossom, intertwine and gesture towards the sky, as a symbol and celebration of both human nature and Mother Nature within the industrial beams.
About the artist
Kevin Eichner, a native of Buffalo, N.Y., is a sculptor, professor and director at The Moncure Museum of Art in Moncure, NC. He received a BFA from of State University of New York College at Buffalo and his MFA from East Carolina University. He has taught sculpture courses at Central Carolina Community College in Siler City, NC; Meredith College, Raleigh NC, SUNY College at Buffalo, NY; and East Carolina University School of ART, NC. His work has been exhibited widely in North and South Carolina as well as internationally in New Zealand, Belize and Estonia.
For more information: www.eichneratelier.com
Lost and Found, 2019
Kevin Curry
Tallahassee, FL
Coroplast
8’ x 4’ x 5’
Artist statement
This floating baby sculpture simultaneously echoes sentiments of potential, safety, trust and support.
About the artist
Kevin received his BFA in Graphic Design from the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan, and after working as an Art Director in New York and Philadelphia, started his own design & Illustration business before receiving his MFA in Sculpture from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois in 2008.
Moving to Colorado in late 2009, Kevin has served as Adjunct Faculty at the University of Denver since 2010 and Regis University since early 2012. In that time, has been awarded public art commissions by the City of Denver and Reginal Transportation District for Denver’s new transportation hub based at the Historic Union Station as well as solo exhibitions at Colorado State University and Rule Gallery in Denver.
Divergent, 2020
Andrew Light
Lexington, KY
Steel
14’ x 8’ x 8’
Artist statement
I am principally concerned with abstract figuration in my work. The pursuit and capture of a momentary gesture in a static object continues to be a fascinating and limitless challenge. This is informed by my explorations of body morbidity, and the move from classical notions of representation of the figure towards an understanding of the human form as landscape.
The context of a work varies from project to project, site to site. Often, works exist as epiphanous gestures, coming to me as they will. Only after a sketch is developed or the beginnings of a form assembled, can refinements happen. Other works are the result of determined, contemplative practice. Developing forms and context to harmoniously pursue a given initiative. It is my explicit intention to leave room for these principle modes of working to exist simultaneously in my practice. Cultivating curiosity and an openness to the process are critical.
About the artist
Andrew Light is a Sculptor, based in Lexington, KY where he maintains an active studio, focusing primarily on fabricated metal sculpture. He currently has several original works held in museum, municipal, and private collections. Light has an extensive background in industry, having worked in several skilled trades. He is an academically trained artist with a principal focus in monumental sculpture. After his formal education he apprenticed as an iron worker, and then served as studio assistants to John Henry, in Chattanooga, TN and Richard Hunt in Chicago, IL. He has worked for the British Open Air Museum of Steel Sculpture, as a workshop and foundry technician. Light has conducted sculptural workshops at various facilities such as University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Sloss Furnaces, Birmingham, AL, Arrowmont, in Gatlinburg, TN, and at the Sculpture Trails Outdoor Museum, Solsberry, IN.
This is his second finalist entry in the Rosen Sculpture Competition.
For more information: www.alightsculpture.com
About the juror
This year’s competition juror is Elizabeth Brim. Brim is a sculptor who uses traditional and innovative blacksmithing techniques and is best known for feminine imagery in her ironwork. A native of Columbus, Georgia, she graduated with an MFA in printmaking before studying and working with a variety of materials at the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina. Quite unexpectedly, she fell in love with iron. With a unique juxtaposition of the feminine and the ferrous, Brim transforms the frilly dresses, fairy tales, and gender expectations of her childhood into remarkable works of social commentary. Brim is also a teacher and lives in western North Carolina.
About the curator
Mary Anne Redding is a visual arts curator and writer and serves as the curator of the Turchin Center. She has more than forty years’ experience working as a curator, archivist, librarian, educator, and arts administrator. She holds a B.A. in English Literature from Ohio University, an M.A. in Arts Administration from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, an M.L.S. from the University of Illinois, Champaign Urbana, as well as an advanced certificate in Museum Studies from Arizona State University. She has written and published numerous essays on photography and contemporary art. Before taking her most recent post as the Curator at the Turchin Center, Redding was the Curator at the Sioux City Art Center in Sioux City, Iowa, for 13 months. Redding previously served for nearly 6 years as the Curator at the Turchin Center. Past positions include working as the Curator of the Marion Center for Photographic Arts and the Chair of the Photography Department at Santa Fe University of Art & Design, and as the Curator of Photography for the Palace of the Governors/New Mexico History Museum.
About the Rosen Outdoor Sculpture Competition & Exhibition
This nationally recognized juried competition, established in 1987, has long been credited with enhancing the cultural landscape of the High Country region, while serving as a highlight and point of pride for the university’s summer arts festival, An Appalachian Summer Festival.
Reflecting the vision and generosity of Martin and Doris Rosen, an extraordinary couple whose lives were shaped by the spirit of public service and philanthropy, the competition brings a remarkable array of contemporary sculpture to our campus and community.
Each year, ten sculptures are selected for exhibition, and are situated in outdoor, public settings across the university campus. A cash prize is awarded to the artist whose work is chosen as each year’s Rosen Award winner, which is announced by the juror at the popular Annual Sculpture Walk, a highlight of every summer festival season. In the last several years, two additional sculptures have been selected. One is installed on campus at Appalachian House and another at the Blowing Rock Art and History Museum.
Over the years, the exhibition program has earned an international reputation for showcasing the finest in contemporary sculpture, and has become a source of inspiration for thousands of visitors, area residents, and members of the university community who enjoy access to a diverse and ever-changing selection of outdoor sculpture each season.
Martin & Doris Rosen
Vision, generosity, and a pursuit of excellence are some of the many qualities that characterized the lives of Martin and Doris Rosen. From their years devoted to building a successful business, to their lives after retirement, revolving around family, philanthropy, and a commitment to the arts, this exceptional couple left an indelible mark on the communities in which they lived and worked.
Thanks to the continuing generosity of the Rosen Family, Martin and Doris’s legacy of support for quality visual arts programming has been continued by their children, and enables this beloved exhibition program to continue to develop and flourish. In July 1997, the Rosens donated Hephaestus, a large commissioned sculpture by Bruce White, to Appalachian State’s Permanent Collection, and it adorns the Rivers Street frontage area of the Schaefer Center for the Performing Arts to this day.
On the occasion of the Rosens’ 50th wedding anniversary in October 1999, their children established the Martin and Doris Rosen Scholarship to assist rising junior or senior art majors at Appalachian State. Tireless supporters of the arts, the Rosen Family has given so much of themselves over the years to ensure that the arts remain a strong foundation of campus and community life in the High Country. We wish to extend to them our deepest appreciation.
Additional resources
- Flickr – Installation images
Contact us
Please address all inquiries to:
Rosen Outdoor Sculpture Competition & Exhibition
c/o Turchin Center for the Visual Arts
PO Box 32139
423 West King Street
Boone, NC 28608
828-262-7520