Visiting artist to build outdoor sculpture at Bradley

Peoria, Illinois...March 28, 2003... Artist Phillip Vander Weg, with the help of Bradley students, will construct an outdoor sculpture on the quad next to Bradley Hall on the Bradley University campus during the week of March 30 through April 4 as part of a sculpture exchange project.

The sculpture exchange project involves artists from Bradley, Western Michigan University, and Millikin University who will rotate during the same week and build outdoor sculptures on each institution's campus. The sculptures will remain on each campus for one year and then the universities will have the option of returning or purchasing the sculptures.

Vander Weg, a professor of art at Western Michigan University, is the founder and director of the Western Michigan University Sculpture Tour Program. He was the guest curator for the Kalamazoo Institute of Art exhibition, "Robert Stackhouse Major Works in Full Scale Since 1969," and worked as a National Association of Schools of Art and Design accreditation evaluator. Vander Weg holds bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

Vander Weg also will give a lecture on Thursday, April 3, at 4:30 p.m. in Heuser Art Center, room 105. The topic will be, "Survey of Recent Works." The lecture is free and open to the public.

The sculpture exchange program was created by Vander Weg, Jim Schietinger of Millikin University, and Jeffrey Huberman, Dean of the Slane College of Communications and Fine Arts at Bradley, with the desire to build outdoor collections of various sculptural points of view for their schools and to involve students in the construction of the projects.

For more information, call Pamela Ayres, gallery director, at (309) 677-2989.