New Art Installed at St. Cloud Tech High School

ST. CLOUD (WJON News) - A St. Cloud Tech High School alumna has given back to her school by brightening the halls with new art.

Desi Murphy has installed “Stepping Up”, a public art installation, just inside the front doors at the school.

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Murphy hopes the piece inspires students as they move toward graduation.

It's about the experience of the student; it's about the part of Tech's mission, striving toward academic excellence and future success. What this piece represents is that as the students are in school, they come from the inside of the school and they work their way out as they're learning and growing. They move upward, succeeding more.

“Stepping Up” is composed of 26 hand-built rectangular prisms made of porcelain and stoneware. The project, measuring 12 feet high and 24 feet long, took nine months to complete.

Murphy says it reflects her Scandinavian heritage and a modern, minimalist style.

I've been working with clay for 25 years, so obviously clay was the first thing that I thought of to make for this public art piece. These pieces are made of porcelain and stoneware and they are hand-built into rectangular prisms and placed on the wall in a step-like pattern that, like I said before, represents striving toward academic excellence. Tech thought that I was a very good fit for this piece because of my overall aesthetic as an artist and then the aesthetic of the building.

Based in St. Cloud, Murphy has been designing clay pieces for over 25 years. She received her BFA from the College of St. Benedict and owns Desi Murphy Pottery in North St. Cloud.

The wall sculpture is a public art project made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Central MN Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural fund.

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