Sources: Martha Scott, 785-776-7718, marthas@k-state.edu;
and Katie Kingery-Page, 785-532-5371, kkp@k-state.edu
Web site: http://beach.k-state.edu/
News release prepared by: Andrew North, 785-532-7718, anorth@k-state.edu

Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2009

STONE SCULPTURE TO BE BUILT ON THE GROUNDS OF K-STATE'S BEACH MUSEUM OF ART BY DAN SNOW, AN ARTIST IN RESIDENCE

MANHATTAN -- Dan Snow, a master waller, will share his skills and dry stone artistry in a brief residency at Kansas State University, Sept. 24 to Oct. 5.

Snow will work with K-State landscape architecture students to erect a dry stone sculpture on the grounds of the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art. He will begin work on the sculpture Thursday, Sept. 24. Using no mortar, he and the students will create a durable dry-laid stone sculpture, designed specifically for Manhattan. Landscape architecture students will assist in Snow's design process and will help build the site-specific work of art.

"The Dan Snow residency provides a special opportunity for landscape architecture students to share their skills with a world-class artist who is a master stone worker in the dry stack tradition," said Katie Kingery-Page, assistant professor of landscape architecture and regional and community planning at K-State.

The finished work will be presented to the public from 1-3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 4, at the Beach Museum's Stone Rising open house. The students also will display their drawings and models for the project at the open house, and materials will be available for attendees to create small maquette sculptures to take home with them.

Snow's residency is sponsored in part by the Kansas Arts Commission, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency that believes a great nation deserves great art. Other partners include Bayer Construction, Manhattan, and K-State's Center for Engagement and Community Development.

Snow also will give a talk as a part of the College of Architecture, Planning and Design's Lee A. Bryant Memorial Lecture series. "LIMITS = POTENTIAL: Dry Stone as a Medium of Expression" will be at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 1, in the Beach Museum of Art's UMB Theatre. Snow will discuss the artistic potential of dry stack stone construction, using examples from his own body of work and the work of other contemporary artists, as well as historic dry stone walling from Europe and the United States.

The Lee A. Bryant Memorial Lectures on Art and Architecture honor Bryant, a 1970 architecture alumnus who died of a stroke in 1981. The lecture series is a tribute to Bryant's passion for art and way to share with future generations of students his concern for the vital interaction of art and architecture.

For more information, contact the Beach Museum of Art at 785-532-7718 or drop by the museum on the southeast corner of the K-State campus at 14th Street and Anderson Avenue. Free visitor parking is available next to the building. Normal museum hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays. The museum is closed Mondays.