LSU School of Art MFA candidate Brittany Sievers won first place at Forum 35’s 12th Annual Art Melt. (Photo by Jeffrey Dubusky Photography, courtesy of Forum 35)

LSU School of Art MFA candidate Brittany Sievers of North Manchester, Indiana, was awarded the prestigious International Sculpture Center’s (ISC) 2015 Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award for her piece titled 10,656 Palms. Sievers also won first place in Forum 35’s 12th Annual Art Melt for Welcome Mat. Art Melt winners were announced at opening night at Capitol Park Museum on Friday, July 25, 2015.

“I’m really humbled by this recognition and excited to continue pursuing my MFA and seeing what the next two years bring,” said Sievers, who received her BFA in ceramics at DePauw University in Indiana before coming to LSU.

Sievers began working on 10,656 Palms during her internship at Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts in Maine last summer. Each individual piece is a red-clay imprint of Sievers’ hand fired at a range of high and low temperatures to achieve color variation. The individual “palms” are held together with chicken wire to create a 12-foot high by 74-inch wide ceramic tapestry of subtle hombre coloration. LSU School of Art Associate Professor Loren Schwerd was Sievers’ faculty advisor on the winning project.

ISC established the annual award program in 1994 to recognize young sculptors and to encourage their continued commitment to the field. This year, more than 158 universities, colleges, and art school sculpture programs from six countries nominated a total of 423 students for the award. A distinguished panel made up of New York sculptor Chakaia Booker; Kelly Kivland, assistant curator at Dia Art Foundation, New York; and Maki Hajikano, associate professor of fine arts at York College at CUNY, New York selected 18 recipients and 7 honorable mentions through a competitive viewing process of the works submitted. The selection of the recipients from such a large pool of applicants, including international students, is a great accomplishment and testament to the artistic promise of Sievers’ work.

As a winner of the Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award, Sievers will participate in the Grounds for Sculpture’s fall/winter exhibition, which will be on view October 2015–March 2016 in Hamilton, New Jersey, adjacent to the ISC headquarters. Her work will also be featured in the October 2015 issue of ISC’s award-winning publication, Sculpture magazine, as well as online at ISC’s website, sculpture.org.

Sievers’ winning installation at Art Melt, Welcome Mat, is made of multiple ceramic pieces that viewers can actually walk on top of. The piece is on exhibit at Capitol Park Museum now through August 27, 2015, and is a small section of a much larger, carpet-sized installation that Sievers completed during the spring 2015 semester at LSU. Art Melt is a month-long art show and festival that includes performers, artist vendors, food, music, and the largest multi-media juried art exhibit in the state of Louisiana at Capitol Park Museum.

More about International Sculpture Center
ISC is a member-supported, nonprofit organization founded in 1960 to champion the creation and understanding of sculpture and its unique, vital contribution to society. Members include sculptors, collectors, patrons, architects, developers, journalists, curators, historians, critics, educators, foundries, galleries, and museums—anyone with an interest in and commitment to the field of sculpture. Visit sculpture.org for further details.

More about Forum 35
Forum 35 is a community of young men and women improving Baton Rouge. Forum 35 is a nonprofit organization that depends on individual membership and the generosity of corporate partners. For more information, visit forum35.org.