Brad Anderson, executive director of Salina Arts & Humanities, announced lately that Joan Benefiel has been selected as the agency’s new arts services coordinator.
Benefiel will oversee the Smoky Hill River Festival’s juried art exhibit, demo artists, outdoor art installations and the Artwork Patron Software. She also will provide as the major liaison to the Neighborhood Art & Structure Method and its advisory committee, and will serve as a regional public artwork and visible arts useful resource
Benefiel, a Wichita native, most just lately lived and worked in New York City and in Brooklyn, N.Y. In the previous 17 many years, Benefiel’s function as a sculptor has bundled commissions for the Vietnam Veteran’s War Monument in Eisenhower Point out Park in Extended Island, N.Y., and to create a St. Ignatius Memorial for Fairfield College in Fairfield, Conn.
Benefiel holds a bachelor’s diploma in women’s scientific studies from the University of Kansas and a MFA in figurative sculpture from the New York Academy of Art. She also has analyzed at the Artwork Pupils League of New York, Parsons University of Style, the School of Visible Arts, and at the College of Hull in the United Kingdom.
Her items have been integrated in shows ranging from “Beyond Rodin: Present-day Figurative Sculpture Exhibition” for the Rye Arts Heart, to “The Showcase Collection of Compact Works” at the Countrywide Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.
“I under no circumstances needed to be an artist who didn’t have an understanding of each individual step,” said Benefiel in a release. “I wanted to do it myself.” Initially self-taught, her training in dimensional layout and creation commenced with Kansas City sculptor Tom Corbin during her a long time at KU, then continued in a variety of roles Benefiel held for much more than a decade at Excalibur Bronze Fantastic Art Foundry in New York Town.
In 2008, she and partner Jeremy Leichman begun their have firm, Figuration Studio, wherever they developed their possess is effective and furnished style and design and fabrication companies for other artists.
Recently, Benefiel’s functions have appeared in exhibitions in Palm Desert, Calif. Springfield, Mo. Colorado Springs, Colo. Knoxville, Tenn. Naples, Fla. Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and other areas. Her get the job done is at the moment showcased in the El Paseo Public Artwork Sculpture Exhibition in Palm Desert, Calif., and in SculptureTour Salina-fashion exhibits in Gladstone and Springfield, Mo., and on the campus of Appalachian State University. Her get the job done has been showcased in two documentaries and in media including Fox News, The New York Situations, and Christian Century.
Benefiel’s lifelong commitment to sculpture illustrates how deeply the medium resonates with her. “It’s literal, but not restricting,” she claims. “I can converse a thing essential to me when placing some thing out there that other folks can convey areas of by themselves to. To have them working experience a piece in the exact same physical area in which I make it, is unique.”
To access Benefiel, contact SAH at 785-309-5770 or at [email protected]. Go to joanbenefiel.com or figurationstudio.com.