Sculpture

The Sculpture Program at Southern Miss has grown to earn a national reputation for turning out well educated 3D artists. Sculpture students at Southern Miss learn strong technical skills within a balanced Art and University Core Curriculum. Each student has the opportunity to investigate diverse three-dimensional media and is introduced to a wide range of approaches, from traditional to contemporary. Students are encouraged to explore and blur boundaries within art in order to progress their own understandings of artistic and cultural issues. Students work in traditional sculptural mediums such as, metal and wood fabrication, casting, mixed media as well as in non-traditional media including installation, environmental art, and video and other electronic media. In addition a major part of curriculum is in ceramics with skills in throwing and hand-building, glaze making and application and firing techniques, all aimed at building successful ceramic sculpture artists.

Facilities:

The Sculpture Facilities at Southern Miss are strengthening regularly with many valuable improvements. In the fall of 2003, the program held a grand opening celebration for its new addition, the Structural Steel Services 3D Arts Building. This space compliments the already existing ceramics lab, metal shop, and foundry with a state of the art wood shop, plaster working room, 3D studio, small machine shop, kiln shed, and the Price sculpture studio. Also located within the new expansion is a window-lined critique/ exhibition space with clear visibility from the pedestrian and auto traffic. A generous contribution from Mr. Tommy Dulaney of Structural Steel Services has allowed us to purchase many of the necessary tools and equipment to outfit the new space and has made possible an endowment for future maintenance and tool purchases.

In the spring of 2006, the Sculpture Program proudly unveiled one of the largest university run cupolas in the United States. With its stack rising over 30 feet, it taps out close to a ton of molten iron. The new cupola is the most recent generous gift from our friends at Structural Steel Services. The addition of the new cupola continues a long tradition of developing innovative approaches to pour technology and mold making practices.