Lander Art Students Win Award for Sand Sculpture Entry
Summer is here, and with Lander University on summer break, members of Lander’s Department of Art have hit the beaches of South Carolina to showcase their creativity in the form of sand sculptures – and win awards for their work, too.
Lander alumna Katherine Rumminger (who earned her BFA in 3D and her MFA in 3D from Lander), Prof. Doug McAbee, and BFA students Elena Medlin and Cathryn Burger all participated in the 37th annual Piccolo Spoleto Sand Sculpture Competition at Front Beach in Isle of Palms, S.C. The annual competition is part of the South Carolina lowcountry’s larger Piccolo Spoleto Festival, a multi-day festival featuring music, theatre, dance, visual art, literary readings and more.
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The Lander team’s entry for the competition, a large sculpture of a woman’s head titled “Miss Spoleto,” received second place overall. While McAbee has taken class trips to the coast in previous years, this is only Lander’s second year competing in the Piccolo Spoleto contest, and the second year taking home an award.
Meanwhile, the Atlantic Ocean took home “Miss Spoleto” once the competition ended and the tide rolled in.
“In just three hours, our team created a very large sand sculpture, five feet tall and 20 feet wide,” said McAbee, who was impressed with the results given the strength of the team’s competitors. “Many of these teams were professionals and traveled from many states away to compete.”
To learn more about Lander’s Department of Art, and the wealth of learning opportunities it provides students, visit www.lander.edu/art.