I was born in Mt. Pleasant, Utah, and grew up in the small logging town of McCall, Idaho. I attended Utah State University, graduating in 1987 with a BFA in Drawing. I also received the University’s Robins Award for Achievement of the Year, and an anonymous gift of $500 to further my education in art. To this end, I attended graduate school at the University of Iowa, and earned both an MA and an MFA (1990) in Drawing/Painting.
Since 1993, I have maintained an active exhibition schedule, showing drawings, sculptures, and numerous large-scale, site-specific, place-based installations at venues throughout the U.S. More than 30 of these installations were part of one-person exhibitions. In 1998, I had a retrospective of my work at Wayne State University; the show included drawings from graduate school, recent sculptures, and three large-scale installations, including A Toll on Earth, which was reviewed in the 1999 Jan/Feb. issue of Sculpture Magazine.
My awards include a 1996 Creative Artists Grant from the Michigan Council for the Arts; the 1999 William & Dorothy Yeck Award (Miami University’s Outdoor Sculpture Competition, Miami, OH); a 2003 Artist Project Grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts; and a 2004 Contemporary Forum Grant from Phoenix Art Museum. In 2008, my sculpture Brassing Out was the Martin & Doris Rosen Award Winner for the 22nd Rosen Outdoor Sculpture Competition at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC.
An article about my installations (“Excavating Destiny, A Conversation with Shawn Skabelund”) appears in the May 2009 issue of Sculpture Magazine.
*banner photo courtesy of Professor Clinton Shock, Oregon
State University.
