Hamilton landmark hosting its biggest event ever this weekend

Credit: Greg Lynch

Credit: Greg Lynch

The third annual celebration of International Sculpture Day at Hamilton’s Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park & Museum will be the biggest yet, with about three times as many sculptures at the park on April 29 as are there on a typical day.

Officially, International Sculpture Day this year falls on Saturday, April 28, but that also happens to be graduation day for the University of Cincinnati and its College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning, said Jeni Barton, the park’s director of arts administration.

“And since they’re our biggest partner in the event, we’re celebrating on Sunday, April 29, so that we’re not interfering with their graduation,” Barton said. “Plus, most of our artists in the show are DAAP students.”

As part of the show, students and their professors will display sculptures, as it has with the DAAP program each of the past two years.

“But this year, we decided to expand it a little bit, and we’re also partnering with the Art Academy of Cincinnati and Miami University in Oxford, as well as Miami University in Hamilton,” Barton said. “They will all be doing professor-and-student sculpture that will be displayed all over the park.”

International Sculpture Day began in 2015, and was launched by the International Sculpture Center to raise awareness and enjoyment of sculpture worldwide.

Also new this year at Pyramid Hill, the event will partner with Lunatic Fringe Salon (on Yankee Road in Liberty Township) and Ivy Salon (on Main Street in Hamilton). Both companies “will have their stylists interpret our permanent sculpture collection into hair designs on (pre-selected) models, and they are going to have a hair fashion show, where those designs are shown off,” Barton said.

Normally, the park has 72 sculptures. The artists will boost that number to about 200.

“This is a chance to see the new crop of artists who are emerging onto the art scene now, from all of our local universities,” Barton said.

“The works vary dramatically,” she said.

In the past there have been “performance sculptures, for example. One woman last year had a mud-filled tub. She got into the tub and recited a poem while applying the mud to herself.

The event will happen 2 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, April 29, at 1763 Hamilton Cleves Road. Pre-registration is not required. Students or professors with college or high-school ID cards will be admitted free. Others will be admitted for the regular park admission, which is $8 for adults and $3 for kids ages 6-12. Members are free.

There also will be a food truck this year: Bones Brothers Wings, which offers vegetarian and vegan options.

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