Hard Lines: Drawing with Steel
with Devin Balara & Abigail Lucien
SCULPTURE 663 001 | 3 credits | $250 Lab Fee
June 1–14, 2025
This hybrid sculpture and drawing course will focus on steel fabrication and the translation of line on paper to line in space. Students will learn to use steel as a drawing material with demonstrations in hot and cold bending, modular construction, welding, and finishing strategies. Technical demos and work time will accompany discussions about daily sketchbook practices and the ways in which literal weight can be given to simple doodles or cartoon graphics. This course is suitable for all levels of shop experience; students will quickly gain confidence with equipment and be encouraged to play and improvise independently with the material at as large a scale as they choose. Students are required to complete 3 assignments over the course of the week, one which will reinforce basic knowledge of linear steel fabrication and safety, and two further assignments, utilizing linear steel drawings at the scale of the student’s choosing. Ultimately, students may deploy work into a particular site or landscape and let their sketches stretch their legs.
Devin Balara (she/her) is an artist from Florida currently based in New Orleans. She received a BFA in sculpture from the University of North Florida in 2010, an MFA in sculpture from Indiana University in 2014, and has been pretending to be a geologist since 2020. Her work has notably been exhibited at Atlanta Contemporary, Ortega Y Gasset and Spring Break in New York, Roots & Culture in Chicago, the International Sculpture Center in New Jersey, and most recently at Coco Hunday in Tampa, Florida. She has worked for over a decade as a metal shop manager for various institutions including eight years at Ox-Bow School of Art in Saugatuck, Michigan. She currently is working as a freelance stained glass artist and educator.
Devin Balara, Groundwater, 2024, glass, lead, zinc, and steel, 55 x 24 x 0.75 in.
Abigail Lucien (they/them) is a Haitian-American interdisciplinary artist. Working across sculpture, literature, and time-based media, their work addresses themes of (be)longing, futurity, myth, and place by considering our relationship to inherited colonial structures and systems of belief/care. Lucien received the 2023 Sondheim Award, was named to the 2021 Forbes 30 Under 30 list, is a recipient of a 2023 Ruby’s Award, 2021 VMFA Fellowship and the 2020 Harpo Emerging Artist Fellowship. Past exhibitions include SculptureCenter, New York; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; MoMA PS1, New York; MAC Panamá, Panamá; Tiwani Contemporary, London; Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta; Frost Art Museum, Miami; and The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia. Residencies include Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, Madison, Maine; Amant Studio & Research Residency, New York; the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Fine Arts, Wrocław, Poland; The Luminary, St. Louis; Santa Fe Art Institute, Santa Fe; ACRE, Steuben, Wisconsin; and Ox-Bow School of Art & Artist Residency, Saugatuck, Michigan. Lucien is currently based in Queens, New York and teaches as an Assistant Professor of Sculpture at Hunter College in New York.
Abigail Lucien, Chen Peyi, 2023, enamel, vinyl, and flock on steel, 51.5 × 29 × 7 in.