Joshua Wiener_sculpture Joshua Wiener_sculpture Joshua Wiener_sculpture
Joshua was born into a stone sculpting community, as his mother founded the Marble Institute of Colorado, a stone sculpting program deep in the woods of Marble, Colorado. His dedication to sculpting earned him an apprenticeship in Japan with Kazutaka Uchida. He also studied at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. Joshua makes large scale public and private sculptures, focusing on public art. Joshua has created sculptures for gateways, roundabouts, parks, transit stations, crosswalks and been on design teams and juried shows. He has created 3-Dimensional sculpture, gates/fences, 2-Dimensional works, water features, suspended works, signs, and incorporated lighting into his sculptures. Joshua is a versed sculptor (he can create anything). Joshua is currently an instructor at the annual summer symposium, The Marble Institute of Colorado. He also taught at the Art Students League in Denver for over four years and has taught workshops at the Denver Art Museum and The Colorado Academy. In 2009, Joshua completed a residency at PlatteForum in Denver. During this residency, Joshua created art from his living series and worked with at risk/underserved youth for five hours a week, teaching them about making art and living well. In 1999, he co-founded Art in Your Park, a 501c3 non-profit that has provided communities the avenue to create art and music in public places at no cost to the community. Joshua has organized over 100 community art projects with various agencies involvement. This program is a great source of his inspiration and has equipped him with skills that can be applied to his public art. Coming from a sculpting family, Joshua has a strong desire to engage the public with inspirational art. Joshua has an ability to create art that communicates ideas. His understanding of environments and how they are inhabited has enabled creations that draw the viewer into a deeper understanding of their personal perspective. Joshua says, "I am most inspired to cultivate appreciation. I use this term in the most broad sense- appreciation of beauty, balance, harmony, but ever more importantly an appreciation of potential in oneself and the place we inhabit.” Joshua often involves the community in his projects because he is driven by art being a process; “it is exciting to involve various people and entities,” he says. He tries to make all his public projects into design teams because he knows that if the people of an area are engaged with his creative process, the project will be more successful. Joshua believes that “Public art should be important. It should mean something, have an impact on the audience, and change lives. To do this it has to be relevant, contain recognizable language, speak to the viewer, reveal something new and be executed with the highest standard of perfection.” He believes in art as an instrument to define our world and feels a well planned artwork shapes its environment and is shaped by it. Joshua strives to create art that is imaginative, educational, and stimulates positive thinking. His art is original, connects the viewer to each area, is responsive to the site, fosters a sense of community identity, is representative of the goals of the project, captures the spirit of the community, is maintenance free, and is made in durable, permanent materials. Joshua continues to follow his dreams in his studio in Boulder, Colorado. Joshua’s public sculptures can be found around the country. Joshua expresses “I want to be involved with creating art that will be used to give an image to a place and be a beacon for our time.”