006: Joe Seipel

Foreground/Background with Noah Scalin

Joe Seipel is a sculptor and conceptual artist who served as a Virginia Commonwealth University faculty member for over 40 years, including 17 years as chair of the sculpture department, 8 ½ years as the Senior Associate Dean of the School of the Arts. And in 2018 even returned from retirement to spend a year as the interim director of VCU’s Institute for Contemporary Art (not to mention a two year stint as vice president at Savannah College of Art and Design). Now a professor emeritus, Joe has returned to a studio art practice. His work is monumental in scale and ranges from conceptually-based objects to multimedia pieces and robotics. His work has been shown internationally including exhibitions in New York City, Peru, Milan, Baltimore, and of course Richmond, Virginia. In this hour long conversation we discuss: fine art education, grad school, job opportunities, goals, retirement, and more! Foreground/Background is a conversation between working artists – pulling back the curtain on the real day-to-day efforts that go into making a living from our passions and the realities of dealing with the art word. Noah on Patreon: patreon.com/noahscalin Music by Jantrax: https://soundcloud.com/jantr4x