The Agriculture Department will be hosting a special evening beginning at 5 p.m. on Thursday, September 9 at the ISU Horticulture Center. Guests will view the newest sculptures at the center and meet the artists who created them.
Sculptors include Grant Walsh, Mac Condill ’99, and Jeff Garland ’92.
Walsh is a College of Fine Arts undergraduate, double majoring in photography and graphic design. This year’s theme for the center, Sculptures in the Garden, came from Walsh. He wanted to construct sculptures out of recycled materials and connect their meaning to pertinent environmental issues that affect all of us.
Condill is an agriculture alumnus. He and his family own the Great Pumpkin Patch in Arthur. Purveyors of all things having to do with cucurbits—pumpkins, gourds, and squash—Condill grows more than 400 different varieties. The cucurbits are also the focus for Condill’s Homestead Bakery, where you can find such things as pumpkin bars and cookies. He has recently opened Homestead Seeds, which continues the family tradition of selling heirloom cucurbit seed.
Garland received his fine arts’ degree at Illinois State and a master’s from Washington University in St Louis in ’94. He has been teaching for 15 years and is now at Illinois College in Jacksonville. He began painting the prairie 25 years ago after a long trip through Illinois and Wisconsin. Watching the grass move with the wind and the variety of textures it created started him on a path to recreate this sensation in his work. Through various mediums his work became kinetic and interacted with its surroundings. His outdoor work celebrates nature with kinetic elements that move like the grass and animals over a rolling prairie.
Contact Jessica Chambers at horticulture@IllinoisState.edu or (309) 438-3496 for additional information about the event.
