Sculpture Facilities

School of Fine Art

Sculpture Facilities

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. In 2007, we look forward to the addition of 20 brand new wheels for our "Sculptural Solutions From the Wheel" program.

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.

Sculpture 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.

In our welding area, we have state-of-the-art TIG-welders, power tools, a new sand blaster and patina stations used to finish bronze casting. For our welding students our equipment includes a jet-milling machine for cutting metal a McEnglevan MIFCO forge machine, a plasma cutter, and 250 amp welders.

We also have available to the students a fully equipped wood shop and the only complete art/sculpture neon studio in California.

Our Mold making studio allows students to make one, two and three-piece molds and casts with materials such as plaster and rubber.