Senior Leaves His Mark on Campus

As the end of the school year approached, one senior was hard at work ensuring he leaves his mark on campus. Nestled between the St. Mark’s Chapel and the Decherd fine arts wing is a vibrantly colored wooden sculpture created by Tomek Marczewski ’22. Under the direction of Harrison Lin ’14, St. Mark’s former wood and metal instructor and John Frost, artist in residence, Marczewski’s piece is the third in what has become an annual tradition.

Throughout the year, seniors in Lin’s advanced honors wood and metal class submitted scale models and written proposals, with Marczewski’s piece ultimately being selected by a faculty panel. Marczewski then worked tirelessly to get the piece finished and installed in time for the 2022 Baccalaureate ceremony and the 2022 International Boys’ Schools Coalition annual conference.

“I wanted to make something that screams ‘art happens here’ and was visible from a long way away,” Marczewski explained. “I experimented with stacking various simple polygons until I realized that they reminded me of children’s blocks, and I found that I liked that similarity.”

The scale of the large wooden sculpture appealed to Marczewski, but also provided production issues.
 

“When working at a larger size, previously small issues, like wood warp, suddenly throw your whole construction for a loop,” he said. “Eventually I just had to grin and bear it, because the tiny imperfections aren’t noticeable when the piece is that big, but making the shift from my previously perfectionistic attitude was tough.”

Earlier in the spring Marczewski was recognized as a Presidential Scholar in the Arts and will be attending Georgia Institute of Technology this fall. His statue will be on display throughout the 2022-2023 school year.