sculptors on campus
Program Description
Students work with the artist on all aspects of the project including concept, selecting a site, collecting materials, fabrication, and installation. Concepts and materials have varied greatly over the years including found objects, ceramics, wood from trees on campus, steel from local industries.
2020 will be the 32nd year of CSUB’s Sculpture on Campus program! This program invites an artist annually
to produce an outdoor, sculpture or installation on the California State University,
Bakersfield campus with the help of our students. We are hoping to get artists who
can work with our students over an extended time during spring semester 2020. After
the work is completed, it will be on display for a year or longer (depending on the
nature of the project) on loan to the campus, but remaining the property of the artist.
The campus is 375 acres with many possible sites. With many mature trees, it is an
oasis in the desert landscape of the southern San Joaquin Valley. The region is replete
with a rich, diverse cultural and industrial history of multiple migrations, music,
oil and gas, agriculture, cattle, sheep and dairy. Cotton is predominant in the area
and issues of water and pollution are salient.
What We Provide
We offer state of the art facilities (including a very large kiln), technical support
and student labor. Depending on the project, the budget will be between $3 - $4,000,
which will include an honorarium, materials and travel. We will provide student, staff,
and faculty assistance along with the use of a forklift, wood working tools and equipment,
metal tools, and equipment and large commercial kilns. The artist selected will be
asked to give a public lecture on campus about their work.
Sculptures on Campus
We currently have 14 sculptures on campus along with rotating temporary ones.
Can you find them all?
Can you find them all?
Meet the 2019 Sculptor on Campus: Mary Beierle
Mary Beierle grew up alongside the Los Angeles Mountains and has trekked throughout
the mountains and glaciers of the American West. The trembling of the tectonic shifts
in that rugged terrain and the visual imprint of that geology are major influences
in her work. She merges images of the landscape with abstracted human forms to explore
our relationship with the natural world. Her sculptures evoke a tapestry of ideas
ranging from the mundane to the heroic. These ideas are explored through emerging
and receding figures, glazing as subject and composition, and contrasts of scale -
from miniature to massive, larger than life-sized, pieces. She is interested in creating
an experience of form and space that the viewer may touch, peer into, and encounter
from various perspectives.
Additional Information and Links
To date, we have had over thirty-five artists. A select list includes: Sachiko Miki
(Japan), Walter van Broekhuiven (Netherlands), Cameron Brian (Bakersfield), Joe Barrington
(Texas), Suthat Pinruethai (Thailand/Los Angeles), Ernest Daetwyler (Canada), Jems
Robert Koko Bi (Ivory Coast/Germany), Cornelia Konrads (Germany), Byoung Tak Moon
(Korea), Lori Nozick (New York), Stan Hunter (Sierra Madre, Ca.), Roger Rigorth (Germany),
Bongi Park (Korea), and Wendy Klemperer Sachiko Miki (Tokyo), Noel Korten (Los Angeles),
Darrin Ekern. Our artist this spring (2019) is Mary Beirele (Claremont, Ca) who is
working with us on a very large ceramic sculpture.
Professor, Sculpture and Ceramics
Phone: 661-654-3095Email: jkohl@csub.eduOffice: CB 110D Joyce Khol's Website