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Galleries / Arts & Culture

Building Artisans

Photography Andrew Cebulka & Stan FoxworthyPhotos 31Issue August 2024
Building ArtisansBuilding ArtisansBuilding ArtisansRecent graduate Carolyne Chardac beside her 2024 capstone project.Carolyne Chardac modeled it after Madame du Barry’s 18th-century apartment at Versailles.ACBA blacksmithing students helped produce and install artist Fred Wilson’s Omniscience sculpture at the Gibbes Museum of Art last year.New Digs: After years of holding classes in the cramped quarters of the Old City Jail, ACBA moved into the spacious and newly renovated circa-1897 Trolley Barn on Meeting Street in 2016.Late blacksmith Philip Simmons, who inspired and helped found the school.The ACBA concept sprang from the need to properly preserve the city’s centuries-old buildings.CBA president Colby Broadwater joined the college in 2008, following a distinguished military career.Students learn from master artisans, such as Joseph Kincannon, chair of stone carving; (right center) classical architecture and design assistant professor Phillip Smith and department chair Jack Duncan, the program was added in 2018.Classical architecture and design assistant professor Phillip Smith and department chair Jack Duncan, the program was added in 2018.Blacksmithing professor Abe Pardee works with ACBA senior Emmett Sullivan; the school will unveil its new forge on upper King Street this month.Building ArtisansBuilding ArtisansBuilding ArtisansBuilding ArtisansWill Hankinson (second from left) shows his forged and fabricated kinetic sculpture.Guests admire a replica of the plaster ceiling medallion at Drayton Hall.Jacob Nyman with his cherry office desk inspired by Stickley, Colleton House, and Thos. Moser.Brock King’s scale model of a French-inspired onion dome.Building ArtisansPaul Reilly’s hand-forged door with a Roman-inspired arch.A timber-frame structure featuring curved compound elements by Adam Infinger.CL Fristoe crafted this dining room table base with joined and compound curved elements.Blacksmithing student Emmett Sullivan created an Art Nouveau garden gate.Building ArtisansThe Byrne-Diderot Library provides significant reference materials for students and faculty. Under the stewardship of President Broadwater, the main collection has grown from 2,000 to more than 17,000 items. The DAR Special Collections room contains another 750 rare books and periodicals, as well as examples of historical tools and 19th-century Charleston ironwork.Working It: Externships are not only crucial to the students’ hands-on learning and required for them to advance to the next year of coursework, they are a boon to the city as well. (Left) Apprentice stone carvers repair gravestones at the Circular Congregational Church cemetery. (Right)Carpentry students show off their renovations at the Powder Magazine.Angela Cabán, ACBA professor of plaster and decorative finishes.

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Crafting the Future: How the American College of the Building Arts is Shaping Skilled Artisans
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