For Kelly Phelps, Art and Design are Intertwined

Dec 17, 2018

For sculptor and Professor Kelly Phelps, it’s all in the doing. The more you do, the more you learn.

It’s a philosophy he teaches to his students as well as applies to his own life. It explains why he encourages them to learn as many different art skills as possible as Art majors at Xavier. It’s why he handpicks several of his best students to attend high-level arts and crafts workshops every summer.

And it’s at least partly why the number of students majoring in art has nearly doubled to over 70 in the last 15 years.

“I tell students you can be a painter or a sculptor, but you have to know more than the one skill,” he says. “The more things you know, the more marketable you become.”

One way they learn different skills, in addition to the exposure they get to painting, drawing, ceramics, photography, graphic design, print-making, fabric arts and sculpture at Xavier, is by attending the workshops, where they go to learn from the masters—including Phelps.

Last summer, Phelps was invited to be a master instructor at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, N.C. He took two students with him because he says, “When I teach workshops, I like to bring students in so they can be exposed to those opportunities, too.”

The students were exposed to artists from all over the world—Israel, Russia and Holland—who attend and teach at these workshops. “It’s a chance for students and artists to retool and rethink and learn a new skill,” Phelps says. “Our students come back to campus and share.”

Since becoming chair of the art department in 2013, Phelps has made such off-campus experiences a priority for students who are serious about careers in art. Working with the department’s budget to find financial support for the students, he’s been able to increase the numbers that attend workshops from three in 2016 to four in 2017 and six last summer.

Phelps came to Xavier in 2003 from the University of Dayton, where he and his twin brother, Kyle, were first employed after earning professional degrees together. They have lived almost parallel lives since they were born in New Castle, Ind., and developed the same interest in sculpture that tells the stories of working-class Americans.

“We are like one person in two different bodies,” he tells people. “All our skill sets are interactive.”

Those skill sets include working together on sculptures that now adorn museums and corporate lobbies such as Chrysler Corp., Purdue University, and the homes of movie producer Michael Moore, actor Morgan Freeman and musician Bootsy Collins.

They created a life-size bronze statue of the 1960's jazz great, Eric Dolphy, for Le Moyne College in Syracuse, NY. And last spring they designed a sculpture as an award for the president of the National Civil Rights Museum, located on the grounds of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.

Their work has been shown at hundreds of national competitions across the country, and they have been featured in Sculpture Magazine, USA Today and Xavier magazine.

Now Phelps, who became a full professor in 2017, focuses on encouraging students to consider careers in the arts. Though many students think they have to major in graphic design to be able to find a job, Phelps advises them they can find jobs in the other disciplines as well, as long as they learn more than one skill as well as the business side of art.

One of their alums helped create the Star Wars line of toys and is now a sculptor and design manager at Hasbro. Another recent alum is working as a jewelry designer. About half go on to graduate school with plans on teaching and becoming professional artists.

“I tell students there are a lot of practical applications for art,” he says. “The misconception with art is that you’ll be a starving artist, that there is no market for your skill sets. That’s not true. There is a utilitarian quality and practical side of it, the form and function side of art.”

Even the Kohler company hires artists to help design their kitchen and bath products—sinks, baths, and yes, toilets.

“Designers can do fine art, too,” he says. “It's advertising, marketing, graphic design and sculpture integrated together.”

Learn more about majoring in Art or Fine Art at Xavier.