Instructor carves, teaches at Limestone Symposium

BLOOMINGTON – Amy Brier, associate professor of fine arts at Ivy Tech Bloomington, spent three weeks in June carving and instructing at the 22^nd annual Limestone Symposium in Ellettsville, Ind. Brier is co-founder of the Symposium with Frank Young.

This summer, Brier is carving two new works of art. One is a personal work and one is a collaborative piece with Sharon Fullingim, director of the Symposium.

Sharon Fullingim, director of the Limestone Symposium

The collaborative work is a limestone slab roughly four feet long with surface carving and large areas of leaf shapes cut through to the other side. Brier explained that the piece could be filled with glass, and backlit.

“We’re experimenting with glass on this piece,” said Brier. “We plan to use it as an example of what we could do for public commissioned work.”

“Having an example will help people visualize what is possible with limestone,” said Fullingim. “For this piece, we were inspired by layers of fall leaves on the ground and how they create pockets of water and puddles throughout.”

A facility in New Mexico used a process called water jet cutting to cut the leaf shapes from the limestone.

“When people hear that technology can be used in carving, people sometimes ask if that is really art, and we say yes,” said Fullingim.

Brier’s most recent public commissioned sculpture is also a collaboration with Fullingim, Millersville Marker, for the Fall Creek Greenway in Indianapolis, Ind. Brier’s sculptures in Bloomington include Impression, at Ivy Tech’s Bloomington campus, and The Human Brain, a collaboration with carver Micheal Donham, on the Indiana University campus.

Brier teaches limestone-carving classes at Ivy Tech Community College, in the associate of fine arts program. Classes will resume in fall 2018. To sign up or for more information about Ivy Tech’s fine arts degree program, visit ivytech.edu/fine-arts.