The graduate sculpture program is a professional studio program designed to further the conceptual development, aesthetic presentation, technical skills, and career goals of the M.F.A. candidates in sculpture. The main objective of the program is directed toward the creation of works of art culminating in a significant body of work.

Graduate students may choose to work within any medium and to direct their study to any three-dimensional specialization such as installation, performance, public art, environmental sculpture, or any of the studio practices. No particular style, aesthetic, or theoretical approach is stressed over any other. Students are encouraged to learn other disciplines and to integrate those practices into their sculpture.

While graduate students design their own course of study within the program, they are required to participate in graduate sculpture seminar and in supervised tutorials with the faculty. Sculpture critiques are scheduled on a bi-weekly or monthly basis, and interdisciplinary critiques are open to all M.F.A. candidates in all studio areas. The program is enhanced by an informal in-house visiting artist program and by the extensive school-wide visiting artist and scholars' series, as well as by ambitious programming at The Harn Museum and University Gallery on campus.

Facilities

The Sculpture Area has three large individual studios for graduate students within the sculpture facility, one private studio in Yon Hall, and the use of two courtyards for large work. The Sculpture Shop consists of a wood shop, metal shop, and foundry. Equipment includes the following: AC/DC arc welders, MIG and TIG welders, plasma cutter, electric spot welder, oxyacetylene cutting and welding equipment, overhead chain fall, stationary sandblaster, portable sandblaster, metal roller, metal brake, metal shear, bench grinders, drill presses, table saw, planer, joiner, wood lathe, three vertical band saws and one horizontal band saw, belt and disc sanders, foundry furnace for bronze and aluminum casting, gas powered kiln for lost-wax, gas-fired forge, anvils and swage blocks in addition to a large assortment of small electric and hand tools. The Sculpture Shop is fully equipped with all the technology needed for metal fabrication and wood construction. Graduate students in Sculpture have unlimited access to the facilities.

Assistantships

The Sculpture Area has graduate assistantship positions in teaching and in technical positions. In addition there are opportunities for teaching assistantships in the Workshop for Art Research and Practice Program (Foundations) and in the College of Fine Arts.

Faculty

The Sculpture faculty consists of one full-time professor, Celeste Roberge, and one part-time professor, Merijn van der Heijden, who also teaches in the Electronic Media area. In addition, students have available to them faculty members with expertise in three-dimensional specializations within Electronic Media, Ceramic Sculpture and Photography. All of the faculty members in sculpture are professional artists who exhibit regionally, nationally, and internationally. Additionally, students are encouraged to pursue relationships outside of the School of Art and Art History. The College of Architecture has several faculty members with expertise in sculpture, public art, and environmental art who have expressed an interest in working with M.F.A. students and students have taken advantage of this opportunity. Likewise, students from the College of Architecture have successfully participated in the Sculpture Program.

Celeste Roberge

Professor Roberge's most recent series of sculptures, Stacks, has been in progress since 1997. The subject of this work is the embeddedness of artifacts and the relentless material conditions of the world which inevitably recoup them. These sculptures are made of tons of dry-stacked stone with domestic objects sandwiched in between the layers of strata like fossils in a road cut. The series has branched into Stacks for Home and Office, which connects geothermal activity with the routine activities of the kitchen. The most ambitious project to date is the creation of a full-scale stone room incorporating the typical furnishings of a living room into the walls of the Raum/Room.

Professor Roberge writes about her work:
"I make objects that are thick and dense in order to slow down the process of perception and apprehension. To me it seems to take longer for a thought to move through a dense object. It stalls in the thick of it. As the object holds the thought for contemplation, the weight of the thought is added to the weight of the object. There is a correspondence between the density of matter and the complexity of the thought. The object shows this."

Professor Roberge maintains studios in Florida and in Portland, Maine. Her sculptures are in several large collections of outdoor sculpture in California and Maine. Awards include two Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grants, a MacDowell Colony Fellowship, a Fellowship at the Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College. She has received five faculty research grants from the University of Florida and an award for teaching excellence. Recent solo exhibitions were held at Adair Margo Gallery in El Paso, Texas and A.R.C. Gallery in Chicago; Selected group exhibitions include venues at Nevada Museum of Art, Portland Museum of Art, Maine Coast Artists, Farnsworth Museum of Art, DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Contemporary Sculpture at Chesterwood, Florida Gulf Coast Art Museum, and Anderson Gallery, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA., Ringling Museum, Sarasota, FL and Expo 2000, Hanover, Germany. She has given visiting artist lectures at Atlanta College of Art, Emory University, Agnes Scott College, Maine College of Art, Bowdoin College, Hampshire College, Memorial University, Newfoundsland, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax, St. Paul's School, Concord NH, University of Maine, Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Haystack and the Portland Museum of Art, and Washington University, School of Art.

Fall Application Deadline: February 1

Prospective students are encouraged to apply for admission as early as possible. The Graduate Assistantship/Fellowship application deadline is also February 1. Assistantships are generally offered only at the beginning of the fall term and students applying for spring are not eligible for fellowships.

Late Applications

Late applications are accepted; however, students will be considered for admission and assistantships according to available space in the program.

Contact

Students interested in contacting a Sculpture faculty member or scheduling a visit to the Sculpture area should contact: Celeste Roberge.

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