Philadelphia’s Sculpture Gym makes headlines as it is featured in the Philadelphia Business Journal this month.  Reporter Jared Shelly profiles the gym and founder Darla Jackson, who won a $20,000 Knight Arts Challenge Philadelphia grant to start the Sculpture Gym.

Click here to read the complete piece & continue below to read an excerpt:

Reprinted from Philadelphia Business Journal:

One local entrepreneur is taking the gym membership business model to the art world.

The Sculpture Gym collects a monthly membership fee and gives people access to 7,500 square feet of woodworking, welding, mold-making and ceramics equipment. Just like a gym, members have their own lockers and can get “personal training” in the form of one-on-one help with projects.

It’s the brainchild of Darla Jackson, a 2003 graduate of the Moore College of Art and Design who opened the facility in late June. The former sculpting teacher at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts got the business up-and-running with a $20,000 grant from Knight Arts Challenge Philadelphia.