Featured awardee: Mary Neubauer

Mary Neubauer

Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts

Sport was not the only thing that disappeared when the world went into lockdown in the spring of 2020. Many artists, too, found themselves without access to the supplies and technology they needed to express themselves and create. With both disciplines wandering through unfamiliar territory, creativity reigned. The situation also forced Mary Neubauer, a President’s Professor of sculpture and the head of the art foundry at ASU, to reimagine her course, “The Athletic Trophy and Medallion.”

Funded by a grant from the Global Sport Institute, the course was designed to explore the physical means by which we celebrate athletic excellence through both medal design and the artistic achievement found in sculpting trophies. But during the semester, the pandemic forced students into their homes, most art supply stores closed, and the ASU foundry was shut down. By creatively using the materials they could fi nd at home and calling upon a private foundry in Mesa, Arizona, Neubauer and her students persisted.

Thinking beyond mere sports awards, students were also encouraged to imagine what other physical achievements society values and how to design trophies and medals for them. They also envisioned what future physical feats could be celebrated and how. “We really tried to bring in the broad idea of physical accomplishment, we tried to tie it to art through teamwork and physical expertise, and then we tried to bring in the history of sport and the way sport has been lauded and valued in society through the physical emblem,” said Neubauer.

By the time the 2021 spring semester arrived, Neubauer again redesigned the curriculum as an add-on to her colleagues’ sculpture courses, creating spin-off assignments and extra credit courses. Enough students were inspired by the idea that Neubauer collected suffi cient trophy designs to fi ll a catalog and create an installation to be shown at Gallery 100, the Herberger Institute’s in-house gallery.

The fi ts and starts of the past two academic years forced Neubauer and her students to think bigger when it came to executing the course, as well as what it means to celebrate physical accomplishments in society within and beyond sport.

Medallions designed by students which were made into vectors, and then formed into magnesium die plates, a type of sand casting pattern.

Photo courtesy of Mary Neubauer