On Wednesday, April 10, a group of almost 70 students from neighboring Booker High School visited the ݮƵ College of Art and Design campus to view a collection of busts made over spring break at the Forensic Sculpture Workshop. The visiting students were part of Booker’s Law Academy program and Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) Visual Arts program.
The exhibition attracted the attention of local teacher John Murtagh, a retired detective from the New York Police Department, who now runs the Booker Law Academy and teaches criminal justice. Murtagh heard about the workshop and the Forensic Facial Approximations exhibition on the news and thought it would be a great opportunity to show his students a unique and real-world investigation approach.
Regular community partner to the College, Booker’s Visual and Performing Arts-Visual Arts program joined the visiting group, led by instructors Steve Strenk and Cathy Janssen. For the visual arts group, the trip highlighted an overlooked application of the skills they are establishing in their studies.
Groups of six and seven spilled into the Special Collections reading room in the Alfred R. Goldstein Library to view the collection of sculptures—clay busts depicting cold case victims from Fort Myers and the Bronx, New York. The sculptures were made during a weeklong workshop hosted at the College and taught by Joe Mullins, a forensic imaging specialist. Over the course of the week, Mullins guided a group of students, alumni, faculty, and staff to transform 3D-printed replicas of skulls provided by the medical examiner’s office into a collection of depictive busts, bringing those victims back to life.
Workshop attendees and ݮƵ College faculty Christina Hess, Dustin Juengel, and Alex Snyder, as well as ݮƵ College student workshop participants Noah Shadowens ’25, Illustration, Autumn McHoul ’24, Illustration, and Jules Pesce-DeFarrari ’25, Illustration, visited with the group and shared their experiences making the busts, anatomy lessons they learned, and the stories of the people whose busts they sculpted.
The students had many questions for the bust artists, from questions about the making process to the next steps in solving the mystery of the victims’ identities. The busts have had a busy life since their creation. After photographing the busts, Mullins sent those images to the medical examiner and Sheriff offices that provided the original skull scans. They will post and push out to the media as well. It takes only one person to say, ‘I know that person.’
Education Program Coordinator Diane Zorn, who organized the workshop and the visit said, “It was fantastic to see the students respond to the sculpted busts and the process information. They actively engaged with the artists, asking questions about the process, and learning about how the muscle structure under the skin layer informs the shape of the face. Many were curious about how it felt to work on a piece of someone unknown. Their curiosity was inspiring. Many are now interested in taking life drawing classes to better understand anatomy.”
The forensic sculptures will be featured on CNN, where they will have a chance to reach a larger audience, and hopefully, get identified.
