Sculpture (Fine Art)

The Sculpture Center, which houses the Academy of Art University's Fine Art Sculpture Department, is a 50,000 square foot state-of-the-art facility located in the heart of San Francisco's museum and gallery district. We teach aesthetic and concept development as well as a variety of media-specific skills such as ceramics, bronze casting, welding, forging, jewelry/metal arts, papermaking and neon. We also have as strong figure modeling program. The ceramic facility contains front-loading computer programmed electric and gas kilns, a slab roller, extruder and a pug mill. The Metal Arts/Jewelry students have access to a 20-ton Hydraulic press, which nicely compliments the enameling, Lost Wax casting and calibrated burnout kilns. The Papermaking classroom also has a hydraulic press and vacuum table for finishing and a large Hollander beater to assist students in making European and Asian-styled paper. Undergraduate Sculpture students and Fine Art Graduate School students use the contemporary technique of "ceramic shell" bronze casting. They enjoy intensive work at the AAC Foundry in South San Francisco, where there is a 150lb metal crucible (silicon bronze and aluminum), burnout kiln, cut-off station, burr-king sander and sand-blaster for their artwork. Back at the 410 Bush Sculpture Center, we house the wax studio with gating and sprue-stations and a ceramic-shell room with a slurry tank and silica sand stations.