Community to Bid for Student-Designed Sculptures at Georgia Southern, Metal Eagle up for Grabs

The Betty Foy Sanders Department of Art at Georgia Southern University will display a series of steel sculptures along the Willie McTell Trail in downtown Statesboro. The sculptures will be available for purchase through an online auction, in which proceeds will go to the BFSDoArt Travel Fund. The fund allows art department students to travel for various types of educational experiences.

Where is home for you?

Georgia Southern University student Katie Snyder was born in Kansas, moved to Arkansas, spent her teenage years in Richmond Hill, Georgia, and now calls Statesboro home.

“I feel like the Statesboro community has really welcomed me,” she said. “I’ve made so many friends and met so many different people who’ve helped me advance my career, helped me advance my social life or helped me as a person.”

Snyder is an interior design student, and a competitive one. The junior recently participated in a competitive design contest for the Sculpture Walk, a public art exhibition sponsored by the Downtown Statesboro Development Authority (DSDA) and Georgia Southern’s Betty Foy Sanders Department of Art.

Alongside her fellow students in Assistant Professor Casey Schachner’s 3D Art and Design Foundations classes, she was to use a 6-by-6-inch square piece of paper to create a three-dimensional object. Students could cut and fold the paper, but they could not remove or reattach pieces of paper. The paper submissions were juried by art and community representatives, and eight were selected to be translated into full-steel sculptures.

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In November, the Betty Foy Sanders Department of Art (BFSDoArt) will display this series of steel sculptures along the Willie McTell Trail in downtown Statesboro.

Snyder’s design shows just how strong her True Blue blood runs. After growing up doing origami with her siblings, she applied those practices to turning a metal sheet into a metal eagle.

That’s right: a 5-by-5-foot sheet of metal will be cut, bent and transformed into the shape of an eagle.

Not only will the students’ sculptures be on display for the public, but they will also be available for purchase through an online auction. That means a member of the Georgia Southern alumni family or local community could be going home with a student-produced metal eagle sculpture; a true sign of one’s Eagle spirit.

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While Snyder didn’t struggle to pick what to model her sculpture on, she did struggle to find a design she liked. She was far from the only one in that boat.

Interior design student Kiara Washington, who considers herself a perfectionist, admittedly, didn’t like most of her first original designs, and most of them ended up in the trash. Then, she found inspiration.

“I tried different things and I found the easiest design came from my personality,” she said. “When I add myself into my art, it becomes very technical and architectural. That’s what happened when I came through with my piece, and I love that.”

Her design was one of the handful selected for the outdoor sculpture exhibit.

“All that hard work paid off,” she said.

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Now, her paper design is being transformed into a large metal sculpture. Each steel sculpture will be powder-coated in a vibrant color to help preserve the work for years of enjoyment.

Additional students with designs selected for the exhibition are Alicia Aguirre, W’Cayla Brigham, Liam Lightfoot, Sophie Romeo, Katie Snyder, Maia Storm and Haylee Workman.

During the opening reception, guests should park downtown and take a shuttle to the beginning of the trail and enjoy a stroll along the trail to see each sculpture, with the walk ending at City Center, the headquarters of Georgia Southern’s Business Innovation Group.

Proceeds from the auction will go to the BFSDoArt Travel Fund. This fund helps art department students travel for various types of educational experiences including class field trips, art study abroad programs, professional conferences and more.

More information about the Sculpture Walk and how to bid online visit GeorgiaSouthern.edu/Art.

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