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.

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.

Blacksmithing: Sculptural Forms

with Natalie Murray
SCULPTURE 672 001 | 3 credits | $250 Lab Fee
June 15–28, 2025

This intensive will start with the fundamental techniques of forging, and move quickly into more advanced projects. We will focus on the processes of moving material while hot, and the forge and anvil will be the primary tools of achieving form. As a corollary, the history of forged ironwork (architectural, tools, and sculpture) will serve as a source of inspiration. Each student will also be encouraged to make an inflated sheet metal sculpture.

Natalie Murray (she/her) is a sculptor and fabricator with a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her time and talents have taken her from her Midwestern roots all the way to the largest women’s university in the world in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; building some of their first maker-space facilities. She is back in Chicago currently working in large-scale, custom metal fabrication serving a variety of different industries around the globe that include: rail, airlines, construction, aerospace, energy, infrastructure, art, and many more. Beyond manufacturing and collegiate instruction, she teaches welding classes, including the 'Women in Welding' course at the Arc Academy.

Time, Chance & Outside Forces

with Heather Mekkelson
SCULPTURE 692 001 | 3 credits | $250 Lab Fee
June 29–July 12, 2025

This multimedia course emphasizes sculpture and site-specificity, providing students with the opportunity to contextualize their practice in the surrounding landscape of Ox-Bow. Coursework will center on the creation of artistic systems that use forces like time, gravity, weather, and decay as process agents. Woodworking and metalworking capacities will be introduced and accessible to students in support of their work. Demonstrations will cover the use of unconventional materials and approaches. A focus on creative forms of documentation will enable students to finish the course with compelling evidence of works that may no longer be in existence. Morning meetings will be devoted to exploring issues of auto-destruction, ephemerality, agency, and uncertainty through readings and discussions. Afternoons provide the opportunity for material and process demonstrations, as well as studio work in the shop or the field with instructor support. Artists we will look to include Leonardo Drew, Mark Dion, Ana Mendieta, and Paul Rosero Contreras, among many others. In addition to discussing excerpts selected from Lucy Lippard’s Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object and writings by Gustav Metzger, we will view screenings of work by Joseph Beuys, Francis Alÿs, and others. Students will complete a midpoint exercise designed to disappear. The course culminates in an ephemeral project that is individually driven, relevant to material covered, and creatively documented.

Heather Mekkelson (she/her) uses all forms of art but finds sculpture to be the best for speculating on questions with no clear answers. She suspects it comes from thinking through her hands. The work Mekkelson makes has been exhibited throughout Chicago and places beyond, in a variety of spaces, like museums and galleries, but also on street poles and that one time in a medicine cabinet. Over the years people have written about what she does, and sometimes who she is. Some insightful ones can be found in print, in Art Journal and Aperture, and online at Artforum, Art21 Magazine, and Visual Art Source. To hear her speak about her work, podcast interviews with Bad at Sports and Studio Break are available for listening. Mekkelson has received support for her work with fellowships, grants and awards from Artadia, the Illinois Arts Council, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, and the institutions she has served.

Breaking Good: Improvisational Stained Glass

with Devin Balara 
SCULP 693 001 | 1.5 credits | $125 Lab Fee
July 13–19

This class will provide a full overview of stained glass techniques. Using the copper foil method, students will learn to cut, grind, and solder colorful glass sheets and shards. Emphasis will be placed on experimentation, improvisation, and using what you find among existing scraps. We will explore three-dimensional form construction, template design, and strategies to use stained glass in your own practice. Those with previous stained glass experience will find space in this class to play and take risks, while beginners will come away confidently knowing the rules of glass—and how to break them!  We will engage in readings and ongoing discussions of color theory while considering artists who use color, light, and line, such as Hilma af Klint, Kerry James Marshall, Raúl de Nieves, and Wells Chandler. Assignments will invite students to find their way through a spectrum of glass pieces and arrange them with a focus on color harmony and intentional refraction of light. The class will culminate in a burst of site-specific installations throughout Ox-Bow’s campus.

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.

Things Become Things: Sculpture & Site Specific Installation

with Devin T. Mays
SCULPTURE 689 001 | 3 credits | $250 Lab Fee
July 21–August 2, 2025

Students will create objects and temporary environments specifically for the Ox-Bow campus. Ox-Bow's community of art making as well as its unique natural offerings such as the forests, lagoon, and lake will be the source and location for site-specific creations. It is an opportunity to blur the lines between studio production and daily life in this setting and be in conversation with other artists expanding the boundaries of the studio. Students will experiment with various traditional and non-traditional approaches to object making such as casting, construction, knotting, the augmentation of found objects, and dimensional drawing. The resulting sculptural experiments will be placed in spaces in and around Ox-Bow. Presentations on historical and contemporary examples including Beverly Buchanan, Emmer Sewell, and Kenzi Shiokava will help to contextualize these modes of working and readings will include Forms of Poetic Attention by Lucy Alford, Blackness and Nothingness by Fred Moten, A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay, and The Endgame by Beckett. We will discuss the meanings of exhibiting work in a variety of spaces: rural/urban, indoor/outdoor/, natural/manicured, gallery space/living space, sacred/profane, actual/virtual and in addition to creating objects and environments for specific locations, we will also reverse this process by letting spaces dictate what the sculptural environment should be. Assignments will invite students to wander, catalog the material world of their surroundings, and produce temporary slight and monumental gestures in the landscape. Regular discussion and critique will culminate in a presentation of works for the Ox-Bow community.

Devin T. Mays (he/him) uses sculpture, installation, performance and pictures to offer observation of what's seen and unseen. The materials being used in his practice do not always present themselves as anything more than what they appear to be. There is not always a physical transformation at the hands of his facilitation. He often refers to his interdisciplinary practice as an exercise in wandering, a practice-in-practice, a place for things to become Things. Mays has exhibited at Sculpture Center, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The Driehaus Museum, Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; Belmacz, London; The Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago; DePaul Art Museum; and The Gray Center for Arts & Inquiry, among others. Mays holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from Howard University and a Master of Fine Arts from The University of Chicago. He is currently a fellow with the Center for Engaged Research and Collaborative Learning (CERCL) and the Art Department at Rice University. 

Open Air Furniture Design

with John Preus
SCULP 694 001 | 1.5 credits | $125 Lab Fee
August 3–9, 2025

In this small class, students will design a bespoke modern collection of outdoor seating for use around the Ox-Bow bonfire. Students will come away with the skills to draft future projects and implement, finish, and install functional works. This class will be hosted in the sculpture studio, upgraded with select woodworking tools.We will review the work of artists and designers including Martino Gamper, Jack Craig, Jessica Stockholder, Misha Kahn, Siosi Design, Hella Jongerius, Chris Schanck, James Krenov, Droog, Sam Maloof, Messgewand, Parsons & Charlesworth, Andrea Zittel, Gordon Matta-Clark, Norman Teague, Enzo Mari, Joyce Lin, and others.Assignments will invite students to compose a thematic collection, salvage from the landscape, produce drawings for projects, cannibalize found objects, and host a celebratory event for the unveiling of their collection.

John Preus (he/him) is an artist, furniture-maker, and builder working in a wide range of media and degrees of functionality. He is represented by Rena Bransten Gallery in San Francisco, and Pentimenti Gallery in Philadelphia.

Casting the Body & the Everyday

with Soo Shin
SCULPTURE 690 001 | 3 credits | $250 lab fee
August 10–23, 2025

In this introductory course, students will obtain technical skills and a fundamental understanding of mold-making. Using the techniques learned in class, students will experiment with various ways to capture the everyday and the body while examining personal symbolism, rituals, and the border between art and daily life. Students will practice imprint, ready-made object, and body casting through four exercise projects using clay, plaster, slip, alginate, silicone, and resin. The class will look into art movements in history, such as Arte Povera, Neo-Dada, and Fluxus, via lectures to find the lineage of the everyday in visual art. We will discuss the practices of artists such as Ian Breakwell, Sarah Lucas, Gabriel Orozco, David Altmejd, Liz Magor, Cornelia Parker, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, and many others, to consider various possibilities of materials, objects, and rituals to trace the everyday. Readings will include Joseph Kosuth’s, “Art After Philosophy and Selected Writings, 1966-1990 (Part II: Theory as Praxis: A Role for an ‘Anthropologized Art’)”, MIT Press. Students will develop their final project using one of the four exercise techniques. Students are encouraged to adopt the natural environment of the Ox-Bow campus as their new everyday and explore it as the source of pattern materials for their molds. Assignments will include inviting students to consider sculpture as a means of recording, creating a new daily routine that involves Ox-Bow's surroundings. Using imprints of materials and traces from it they will cast the imprints into several plaster blocks. Students will also cast a body part in a symbolic gesture. Incorporating found materials, objects, or sites of your choice with your work to create five sculptures or installations as a final project.

Soo Shin (she/her; b. Seoul, South Korea) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Chicago. Shin employs a diverse range of materials—ceramic, brass, concrete, wood, and seawater—to evoke themes of connection, spatial displacement, and longing. She is the recipient of the fellowship at Djerassi Artist Residency, Woodside, California; the individual artist grant at the Illinois Arts Council; and the Vilcek Foundation fellowship at MacDowell Artist Residency. Shin’s work has been presented at The Luminary, St. Louis, Missouri; PATRON Gallery, Chicago; Goldfinch Gallery, Chicago; Chicago Manual Style, Chicago; LVL3, Chicago, IL; and Chicago Artist Coalition, among others. She has completed residencies at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center; Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams; Vermont Studio Center; Art Farm, Marquette, Nebraska; and Ox-Bow School of Art & Artist Residency, Saugatuck, Michigan. She earned a Master’s in Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, a Master’s in Fine Arts, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Ewha Womans University, Seoul, South Korea.