Made of stoneware clay, with pieces glued together by silicon, each of the 17 pieces of “Segments” are placed across from the ceramic classroom of Christel DeHaan Fine Arts Center. The artist is first year graduate student and adjunct professor Margaret Augustine. The piece is one of the newest additions to the Fifth Third Bank Campus Sculpture Walk.
Professor emeritus Dee Shaad, who helped start the walk and Jim Viewegh, Associate Professor and Chair of Art and Design, have worked together to select which pieces to display.
“If you look at the three of us [Shaad, Viewegh and a newly added sculpture professor], we have over 100 years of art expertise,” Viewegh said. “We look at pieces, decide what we think is aesthetically pleasing, does it fit within the criteria of our sculpture walk, which is original works of art and will it last outside.”
The majority of pieces on the walk are from artists who have no association with UIndy, which Augustine said made her all the more appreciative of her selection.
“I consider myself an artist but not that developed, but to think my work is good enough to be seen in public, it’s very exciting,” Augustine said. “It was a nice surprise since it was a lot of hard work making that piece.”
Augustine’s piece was inspired by a project in the fundamentals of two-dimensional design. She said she began with a maquette, which is a smaller sculpture of the piece, before creating the final version. Each shape is now nine times larger than her maquette and held together by silicone.
Augustine made the piece for her senior thesis. She said that she was tasked with trying to portray her identity as an artist as part of the project. Augustine explained that “Segments,” dealt a lot with what she appreciates most about her art—the idea of part versus whole.
“Each artist has their own thing they want to work with, [mine is] what creates wholeness?” Augustine said.
The goal of the project was being able to place herself in the art industry in a specific area, because there are many out there, but the part versus whole, organic versus geometric is the area she finds most enjoyable, she said.
To those who would like to get a piece featured like Augustine, she advises them to keep working. She said that she never imagined this piece being displayed outside and that it was purely by chance that Viewegh liked it enough.
“Just work hard enough and there will be people out there who will be interested in your work,” Augustine said. “Maybe not everybody—there’s different people of different tastes—but the advice is to just keep working hard and good things could come your way.”
