During Summer 2022, I led an undergraduate research project through the Kugelman Honors Program. I worked with a fellow student to provide attendees of the Summer 2022 Kugelman Honors Washington, DC Study Away Trip with commemorative models of the George Washington statue sculpted by Horatio Greenough. I learned these skills from my mentor, Thomas Asmuth, throughout the previous year, and I taught them to Maggie Brown, another Kugelman Honors student. Together, we produced twenty-eight five-inch-tall resin 3D-printed models of this controversial sculpture, a process which involved many hours of 3D printer troubleshooting, removing supports from printed pieces, and sanding.
These models are a meaningful commemoration of this study away trip because its associated course explored “American Identity in the Built Environment: Museums, Memorials and Monuments in D.C.” Participants in this trip, including myself, were asked to investigate meaning in art and architecture throughout our nation’s capital, especially the National Mall. Horatio Greenough’s monument of Washington is controversial for several reasons, such as its near-nudity, and it offers extensive opportunity for discussion of neoclassical influence and issues of deification.
