For the past month, senior and junior art majors April Sala and Kirbi Echerty have worked on a steel pipe piece for their advanced sculpture class. Their goal is to be done by family weekend.

Both students said they hope to show off the sculpture to their parents this weekend.

“I want to show it to my dad,” Sala said. “It will impress him.”

Sculpture professor, Jeff Boschart, said the pipe was left over from a university contractor so he decided to take advantage of it for a class project because it was too much big for one person.

Echerty and Sala said the project requires a lot of strength.

“We obviously can’t lift 500 pounds of steel pipe,” Sala said.

Echerty said the project has been fun but has had challenges such as getting everyone together and burns from the welding.

“It’s been good, except burning my scalp today,” Echerty said. “That was not fun.”

Both Scala and Echerty said the burns are very similar to sunburns.

Echerty said the class is creating three sculptures and each will be riveted to each other and placed between the Doudna Fine Arts Center and Buzzard Hall.

“It needs to flow and not have an end,” Echerty said.

Seth Schroeder can be reached at 581-2812 or scschroeder2@eiu.edu