Heritage Preservation home

Subscribe to Heritage Preservation Update

Archive

Join Heritage Preservation

Support Heritage Preservation

Past issues:

Fall 2005

Summer 2005

Spring 2005

Readers are welcome to reprint material in this e-newsletter. Credit should read, "Reprinted with permission of Heritage Preservation."

Heritage Preservation
1012 14th St. NW, Suite 1200
Washington, DC 20005
202-233-0800
fax 202-233-0807
info@heritagepreservation.org,

Teaching About Sculpture the Hands-On Way

Vacquero, by Luis Jimenez,
was one of the sculptures on
the tour. Photo courtesy
Kronkright Conservation of
Cultural Materials, Inc.

In El Paso, Texas, 37 public high school students and teachers joined a six-hour outdoor sculpture conservation tour and education program facilitated by conservator Dale Kronkright. The National Endowment for the Arts and Save Outdoor Sculpture! provided funding; the City of El Paso Museums and Cultural Affairs Department coordinated the event.

The program included a tour of three public sculptures (including Vaquero by Luis Jimenez) discussing different aspects of creating public art such as selecting a site and maintenance issues. Students were then taken to a classroom and divided into teams. Each team “designed” a sculpture for a selected site in downtown El Paso, taking into consideration issues of subject matter, materials, and long-term maintenance.

A sketched sculpture
design by a participant.

Participants enjoyed learning about the artworks and their history, and appreciated the hands-on aspect of the group project. This program uses the principles of design education in which students are able to immediately apply learned knowledge by executing a design project.