Amitie, William King
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The Sculpture Park Collection at Plattsburgh State found its criteria of inclusion and its role in the college and community as it evolved. The product of a close administrative collaboration between the Art Museum and the Art Department sculpture program, it created a unique multi-level education network on campus and beyond. Artists came to Plattsburgh, the college did not go out "collecting." By creating an environment of learning, fairness, respect, professionalism, mutual benefits, energy and excitement, it became a place artists wished to be a part of. Good artists know other good artists and pass on information about sympathetic environments to their serious work. Artists create and discover their aesthetic by working. They do so by working in a responsive, challenging and critical environment; in other words, an educational one. All aspects of the creative choice, practice and installation have become part of the educational structure. The artists not only initiated the environment of learning and growth but also benefited by it. Putting commercial and media critical immediacy aside as they journey north, they entered the dialogue of growth with their pieces and the Plattsburgh State University community.
Certainly the process of making art has been enhanced and professionalized by the sculpture park. In addition, the collection of the objects throughout the campus has brought art into the very fabric of the college. Students and community face art as they pursue their work. Creative, contemporary visual exploration is a full partner in the general education of our students. Art becomes part of the environment-------the daily discussion of what the NOW looks like. Too often in academic situations, visual expressions become an avoidance of the present -- an escape into a past of ivy-covered fantasies.
The sculptures represented in the Plattsburgh collection are in the first ranks of contemporary three-dimensional expressions. They are, in most cases, the modernist tradition avoiding the narrative and secondary reference of traditionalist modes. Although avoiding strict postmodernist regulations, there is occasional irreverence, historical reference or hermeneutic gymnastics.
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