Wofford to Formally Accept Sculpture by Converse Professor
Wofford College will embrace “A Green Season” on Wednesday, Sept. 19, with a formal acceptance ceremony of the sculpture by local artist Mayo Mac Boggs. The ceremony will be held at 3 p.m. around the multi-piece sculpture located among the trees across from the Sandor Teszler Library.
“A Green Season,” which was installed on campus in mid-July, was donated to the college by professors Linda Powers, Ana María Wiseman, Dennis Wiseman and retired professor Victor Bilanchone.
The sculpture was designed as a piece of environmental art that will draw attention to the space around it.
“When we add a piece of sculpture to a landscape, it draws attention not only to itself, but to the setting as well and lets us look at how the two are related,” says Oakley Coburn, dean of the library and curator of Wofford’s art galleries. “This location is a grove of trees, which in the past simply has been an area we often have passed through without seeing. Now, the sculpture causes us to pause and look about. The elements echo forms of leaves and seed pods, branches and trunks. One piece literally embraces a large oak. Until the sculpture was installed, most of us probably had never noticed the tree. The sculpture was created for this specific location, and lets us see it with fresh eyes and spirit.”
Boggs is a professor of art at Converse College. His work appears in numerous collections throughout the United States, including the presidential libraries of Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. Well known for his abstract paintings, steel sculptures, bronze work, computer graphics and architectural designs, Boggs continues a family tradition of ironwork. His great-grandfather was a blacksmith; both grandfathers and his father were welders and steelworkers. A graduate of the University of Kentucky, he earned his M.F.A. degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has taught undergraduate and graduate courses at Converse College since 1970.
This sculpture helps to highlight Wofford’s growing emphasis on the arts. Wofford President Benjamin Dunlap says, “Much modern sculpture transforms our perception of the world by helping us see underlying structures and analogies. The different parts of ‘A Green Season’ do precisely that, echoing the natural forms around them during spring and summer and subsequently, during the fall and winter, making us think of what has been and will be again. A college education is about thinking as well as seeing, and this delightfully provocative work is a festive addition to our arboretum.”