Sculpture Garden
As you explore our campus, you'll discover our outdoor sculpture installations at almost every turn. Southern Vermont's distinctive seasons provide an ever-changing backdrop and a fresh look at these contemporary works by featured artists every time you visit.
Wendy Klemperer
Wendy Klemperer works on a scale that is larger than life, an expansion of scale that reflects the place a wild beast holds in our imagination not the actual animal, but the huge space it takes up in the mind's eye. The piece is simultaneously there and not there, as if disappearing before our eyes. This creates a tension akin to the apparition-like quality of a fleetingly glimpsed wild creature, gone in a flash, just barely perceived before it vanishes into the woods again. Klemperer attended the University of Rochester, then transferred to Harvard University to earn a BA in biochemistry before moving to NYC to pursue art full time. She earned a BFA in sculpture at Pratt Institute. Her work has been exhibitied widely in NYC and the US, including installations at Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, NY; the Bridgewater-Lustberg Gallery, NYC, NY; and the DeCordova Museum & Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA. Her large-scale permanent installations include 560 Broadway in NYC and Henry Lay Sculpture park in Missouri. Klemperer has taught welded sculpture at the Educational Alliance Art School and Third Ward in NY, and the Carving Studio & Sculpture Center, West Rutland, VT. Work on display: "Stalking Cheetah", Steel, 45" x 98" x 35"
John Kemp Lee
John Kemp Lee has a BA in Psychology from Dartmouth College and an MFA in Sculpture from the University of Pennsylvania. Currently Adjunct Professor of Art at Dartmouth College, he is an internationally exhibited artist whose work has been shown in numerous gallery exhibitions, including most recently a one-person exhibit at Kouros Gallery, New York City. "The objects that I make, be they wall reliefs, drawings, or free-standing sculptures are always concerned with the Distance Between. How close do we hold our loved ones, how strongly do we embrace the philosophies that guide us, what separates us from true contentment, what exactly is that moment when life turns to death?" Kemp Lee sees his pieces as being attempts to identify and describe the ineffable to discover "what is universal among specific, even unique, circumstances."
Gregory Smith
Gregory Smith is a sculptor and poet who lives in North Pownal, Vermont. He studied at Kenyon College, where he was awarded the Kenyon Poetry Prize in 1974, then at Bennington College, with Isaac Witkin and Brower Hatcher. He earned a BA. at the University of Vermont, where he studied with Paul Aschenbach, Frank Hewitt, and Gregg Blasdel. An award-winning artist, his numerous solo and group exhibitions include those at the Kouros Gallery, Sculpture Center, Ridgefield, CT; Chesterwood, Stockbridge, MA; The Fleming Museum, Burlington, VT; SUNY at Purchase, Purchase, NY; and AONE, Silvermine Guild, New Canaan, CT. In his essay on Smith's sculpture, Sam Hunter writes, "Whimsical and deft, his art focuses on the personal and poetic rather than on the universally heroic, and thus expresses a slightly ironic, quixotic quality that is quintessentially late-twentieth century American." Work on display: "The Wealth of Fools", Stainless Steel, 112" x 45"x 24"
David Tanych
David Tanych has been building objects since his father gave him a hammer, saw, nails, and a block of wood at age ten. A veteran home and furniture builder, Tanych has turned his interest in design and fabrication from the functional and practical to the imaginative and artistic. Interested in welding and the properties of metal, Tanych attended two summer sessions in blacksmithing at the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina. As he became more skilled, Tanych began building steel outdoor sculptures. Likened to the work of sculptor Claes Oldenburg by many viewers, his most recent pieces are big and bold, on a massive scale. "My enormous pieces are immediately recognizable for the common, functional item they represent, and people can easily relate to them because of the memories they call to mind. I am always aware of how these works will be displayed, and my intent is that these evocative objects can be appreciated in a fresh, playful, and meaningful way." Work on display: "Opened", Steel, 252" x 84" x 96"