VCU's Joe Seipel is ready for new challenges in Savannah

When Joseph H. Seipel became chairman of Virginia Commonwealth University's sculpture department in 1985, the department had so few majors that the State Council of Higher Education put it on the chopping block.

"They were threatening to cut us off at the knees," sculpture professor Lester Van Winkle, now retired, recalls. "I felt we would cease to exist."

Fast-forward 16 years.

VCU's sculpture department is named No. 1 in the specialty rankings of American art schools in U.S. News and World Report.

The rankings were published one month after Seipel was promoted to senior associate dean for academic affairs and director of graduate studies at VCU's School of the Arts (now officially VCUarts) in 2001.

Seipel was clearly on his way, but no one could have guessed how far he would travel. Last year, at a time when most folks would be thinking about retirement, the 61-year-old Seipel let it be known that, after 35 years at VCU, he would leave in May to become vice president for academic services at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia.

"It's a much bigger job at a much bigger art school," Seipel says during a wide-ranging interview in his Pollak Building office at VCU.

Seipel is effusive in his praise of Savannah College, where he'll supervise seven deans and be the third man down from the top.

"A search firm contacted me early last fall and asked if I'd be interested in the Savannah job," he explains. "I'd never been in Savannah. I listened. I did a video interview. Then the college asked me to come to Savannah.

"I was blown away by the entire operation, the quality of the school, the integration of the school into the city. The facilities were state of the art, and the school has an interesting entrepreneurial spirit that really appealed to me. People kept talking about how student-oriented the school was. That appealed to me, too."

So what tipped the scales?

"The idea of a personal adventure, the entrepreneurial spirit -- it all appealed to me," Seipel says.

The appeal was mutual.

"We were looking for someone with vision and big ideas," says Savannah College's chief academic officer, Tom Fischer, who will be Seipel's boss.

"Joe is as close to a perfect fit as we can find because of his background as an artist and administrator. When he visited the campus, we were especially impressed with his intelligence and his great sense of humor."

Seipel's high humor might be the quality most missed when he leaves VCU.

"In all the years Joe was chairman of the sculpture department, I don't think I came to work a single morning without hearing laughter coming from Joe's office," recalls Elizabeth King, who began teaching in the sculpture department the same year Seipel became chairman.

Seipel has had great impact on Richmond since he settled here after growing up in a Wisconsin town so tiny -- population: 40 -- that he studied with 28 other students through seventh grade in a two-room schoolhouse presided over by two nuns.

"I think of Joe as something forceful like a tsunami," says Beverly Reynolds, who hung out in Seipel's Texas-Wisconsin Border Cafe across West Main Street from her Reynolds Gallery until he and his partners sold it in 1999.

"His leaving doesn't surprise me. Joe's an extraordinary leader and teacher. I'm sure there have been other opportunities to leave, but this opportunity hit a particular chord at this particular time."

Seipel has worn four hats -- artist, teacher, administrator, business entrepreneur -- with ease.

"I also wear a fifth hat as husband and father," he says. "Don't forget that."

Three decades ago, Seipel was known primarily as an active sculptor with a boundless imagination.

He attracted wide attention with works ranging from conceptually based objects to multimedia pieces and robotics. They often were energized by Seipel's good humor.

Seipel's 4-foot-high 1996 "Self-Portrait" in urethane foam and polyester resin, for example, is hardly a static sculpture. It not only moves as viewers approach but proceeds to give a welcoming speech and discuss art censorship.

As the years passed, however, Seipel's art output decreased as the administrative chores multiplied.

Seipel's last major exhibition was a three-artist affair in New York in 2001. A decade has passed since his last one-man show in Richmond at the 1708 Gallery.

"I try to make as much art as I can, but it's hard," he says. "I have to be very careful how I apportion my time."

Nonetheless, at bottom, he considers himself an artist.

"I can't imagine how dull life would be if I weren't involved in the arts," he says. "Being an artist and my interest in the arts is what makes my life interesting.

"My training as an artist weaves almost seamlessly through all my other activities. Much of what we do as artists in the studio is setting up problems for ourselves and then finding solutions. In that search for solutions, we try to keep as many options open as possible.

"That process is the same one I use as a teacher, administrator, entrepreneur and family man."

So how did Seipel turned an endangered academic species into the nation's top sculpture department?

"When I became chairman, we had about 45 sculpture majors," Seipel explains. "The faculty got together to discuss ways to increase enrollment.

"We began moving into the digital realm, built a 3-D computer lab and made sure that potential students knew that sculpture wasn't just pounding on rocks. It included performance, installation, video and digital media -- a full spectrum of traditional and nontraditional media.

"We started advertising our new look around the country and, within three years, were up to 140 majors.

"We strategically set out to be good and to let our colleagues across the country know how good we were."

Along the way, the Department of Sculpture was officially renamed the Department of Sculpture and Extended Media, but it's still known universally as VCU's sculpture department.

As Seipel embraces his Savannah future, he's not about to cut ties to his Richmond past. He and his wife, Suzanne, are holding onto the Laburnum Park house where they raised their daughter, Chloe, now a freshman at James Madison University.

"We'll use it as a second home," he says. "Suzanne's family is here, and Chloe is close by.

"We have really strong ties to Richmond."

Roy Proctor, a freelance writer and theater director, retired in 2004 as the art and theater writer for The Times-Dispatch. He can be reached at royproctor@aol.com.