Sculptor Shawn Skabelund in
residency at ASU
Public invited to lecture at Turchin Center February 18

Artist Shawn Skabelund, winner of Appalachian State University’s 22nd Annual Rosen Outdoor Sculpture Competition & Exhibition, will be featured in a weeklong residency held on campus February 16 – 20. Skabelund’s sculpture, Brassing Out, was named the Martin and Doris Rosen Award Winner during An Appalachian Summer Festival’s Annual Sculpture Walk on July 26, 2008, and is currently located in front of Walker Hall on Appalachian’s campus.

As part of the Rosen Artist Residency program, Skabelund will present a public lecture on Wednesday, February 18th at 7:30pm in Room 1102, the Lecture Hall at the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts. A reception in honor of the artist will follow. In addition to the public lecture, Skabelund will work with students of the university’s Department of Art, conducting class lectures, as well as group and individual critiques. His activities on campus have been organized by Department of Art Lecturer Sean Matthews.

The Rosen Outdoor Sculpture Competition & Exhibition is a national juried competition presented annually by Appalachian State University’s Turchin Center for the Visual Arts as a part of An Appalachian Summer Festival. Made possible by the generosity of longtime arts supporters Martin and Doris Rosen, this national, juried competition continues a long-held tradition of showcasing the best of large-scale, contemporary American sculpture. Each year, ten sculptures are selected for exhibition, and are sited in outdoor, public settings across campus. A cash prize is awarded to the artist whose work is chosen as that year’s Rosen Award winner. Since its establishment in 1987, the Rosen has been an integral part of An Appalachian Summer Festival, with the announcement of the Rosen Award winner each year during the festival’s annual Sculpture Walk, led by that year’s juror.

The Rosen Artist Residency Program continues a longstanding partnership between the Rosen Outdoor Sculpture Competition and the university’s Department of Art. Additional information for the competition and exhibition, the residency program, and Skabelund’s full itinerary may be found at www.rosensculpture.org.

The Turchin Center is located at 423 West King St., in Boone, NC. Hours are 10 AM-6 PM, Tuesday-Thursday and Saturday, and Noon – 8 PM, Friday. The Center is closed Sunday and Monday and observes all university holidays. There is no admission charge, although donations are gratefully accepted. For additional details about the Turchin Center or the upcoming exhibition program, please call 828/262-3017 or visit www.tcva.org.

Artist’s Statement

The son of a U.S. Forest Service hydrologist, and homemaker, I was born in Mt. Pleasant, Utah and grew up in a variety of small communities in the west, the most memorable being the small logging town of McCall (Idaho). My fondest childhood memories center on the days I spent huckleberry picking in the mountains. I attended Utah State University, graduating in 1987 with a BFA in Drawing. That same year, I also received the University’s Robins Award for Achievement of the Year, and an anonymous gift of $500 to further my education in art. To this end, I attended graduate school at the University of Iowa, and earned both a MA (1989) and a MFA (1990) in Drawing/Painting. In 1991, I married Alexandra Carpino, an art historian who specializes in the field of Etruscan art. Our son, Adrian, was born in 1996 and our daughter, Chiara Rose, in 1999. Currently, I teach courses in Drawing, Figure Drawing and Installation art in the School of Art at Northern Arizona University.

Since 1993, I have maintained an active exhibition schedule, showing drawings, sculptures, and numerous large-scale, site-specific, place-based installations at venues throughout the U.S., many which were part of one-person shows. In 1998, I had a retrospective of my work at Wayne State University; the show included drawings from graduate school, recent sculptures, and three large-scale installations, including A Toll on Earth, which was reviewed in the 1999 Jan./Feb. issue of Sculpture.

I have been recognized by arts organizations in Alaska, Arizona, Iowa, Michigan and Ohio. My awards include a 1996 Creative Artists Grant from the Michigan Council for the Arts for A Path that Joins, and Divides; the 1999 William & Dorothy Yeck Award for Temple of the Sibyl; and a 2003 Artist Project Grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts for Virga (The Hunt for Water). And in 2004, I became the first Flagstaff artist to receive a grant from the Phoenix Art Museum’s Contemporary Forum. For more information on Skabelund’s work, please visit www.shawnskabelund.com.