Who Makes Sculpture?

We had our "Open Studio Night" last night, and like last year, it was a bit of a disappointment. I had a three minute video that, as far as I can tell, no one had the patience to sit through, along with a pamphlet book that no one read, and some bronzes that people glanced at. Since I was one of the first sculpture studios people saw (and I made an open space in mine for installations) the main topic of conversation was how big my studio was. This, I suppose, is to be expected. Technically people had one hour to see 30 studios, so that leaves about 2 minutes per studio. Of course, no one actually spent two minutes in a studio, so, whatever. What was really disappointing was that I did not see a single faculty member there. I understand that there are things going on around town, but, nothing is going on from 4:30 to 5:30, and open studio night is a good way for them to briefly talk to us and see what we are up to (since so few of them show up to our department lectures). Since most of us kept our studios open until 6, a faculty member could have come and spent 4.5 minutes talking to each sculpture grad.

Another thing that was frustrating was the expectations of people within the "art world" (if that even means anything... I guess I am distinguishing them from a casual viewer). During a conversation, someone said to me that at least in Ceramics, every single person had clay in their studio, but that no one in Sculpture was making sculpture. This is not the first time I have heard this. I repeated the standard, "go to Painting" quip, but, honestly, I was really annoyed. Not only did I have "sculpture" in my studio, but, the vast majority of my fellow sculpture grads had "sculpture" or documentation of "sculpture" in their studio. Webster online defines sculpture as a "three dimensional work of art." It defies logic that someone could walk into any of our studios and not see three-dimensional works of art. The statement "no one is making sculpture" can't be referring to 3D art since at least 12 of us had 3D objects on display, so, the statement must really mean one of two things. Either it means "no one is making only sculpture," since most of us make objects plus other things, or it is a statement about materials. If the clay binds all ceramics grads together, what is the material that binds all of us together? I don't think this expectation is fair. Even if we ignore the last three decades or so and say that sculpture materials consist of: metal, plaster, clay, wax, wood, felt/cloth, silicone, plastic, paper, resin, etc.--I can't imagine that if you had an "open studio night" where each of these materials were represented that there would be any sort of formal thread that tied everything being made together as "sculpture”. When Sculpture Magazine (not exactly known for being on the cutting edge) includes Anne Wilson in its pages, how can anyone walk into our studios and declare our production "not sculpture"? This leads me to wonder if its not a statement about objects, but a qualitative statement. Does "no one is making sculpture" mean "no one is making good sculpture"? Is our sculptural production invisible because it isn't any good? Wouldn't good sculpture be noticed?