I’m confident the answer to the initial question is “yes”, but in my little corner of the world I’ve never met a sculptor - no students, no teachers, no amateurs or professionals - and I don’t recall hearing about significant sculptures being erected anywhere in the last few decades.
Sculpting fascinates me, but I’m totally ignorant of how it works. If you’re a sculptor -
- when/how did you start? Do you start with clay and pottery?
- How do you “practice”? Play-doh? Gotta imagine it’s different based on your preferred medium?
- do artists still use marble? Seems like it’d be insanely expensive & one mistake screws the whole thing up
Ehhh, depends on how rigidly you want to limit things. Big sculpture has always been an expensive field to work in. Stone and metal just don’t lend themselves to a person just deciding to get started at them.
But smaller scale, and other materials? You can find artists doing that in pretty much any city with any kind of art scene at all
Clay is fine for practice and final works, btw. As is wood, though it’s less reusable.
Caveat: I ain’t famous.
But I’ve sold some small stuff over the years. Paintings too. And books, but that’s creeping outside of what you asked.
Sculpture on a big scale is pretty limited. But anyone can sculpt things that are reasonably sized, just for fun, if they can afford the supplies.
Depending on how you limit sculpting as compared to crafting, I’ve even made decent side money making stone and glass knives (it’s called knapping, but there is art to the craft). But I’ve done some wood carving, mostly animals, that did okay in terms of selling (mostly to wiccans that wanted their spirit animals in a pocket friendly size).
Stone is a difficult medium. Takes more expensive tools, more work, and it is less friendly to mistakes. Never worked with marble, but the stuff I did mess with wasn’t forgiving at all.
Biggest thing I ever did was knee high though. Well, except for carving the tall stump of a tree that got damaged in a storm.
But I can’t say I’m a sculptor. I’ve done some sculpting, and that is different. I never have done it for a living, nor even as a steady thing. I dabble. I dabble in a lot of things because I like trying new things, and taking them to a casual degree of proficiency.