Drivers on Sleepy Hollow Road in Penn Township often slow to a stop when they see the concrete sculptures in Mark Milliron’s front yard.

Milliron, who has lived on the road for nearly 40 years, has come to expect questions and curiosity about the human-like figures, especially when he is working on a sculpture outside.

“I’m out by the road, so a lot of people stop and talk,” he said.

Milliron has been making art for about 50 years. His yard is dotted with 28 concrete sculptures, and his home is adorned with 10 paintings and about 15 wooden sculptures.

Milliron was first drawn to the arts through painting, but sculpture came to him more naturally, he said. He finds the flat surface of a canvas limiting, he said, opting for the three-dimensional expression of sculpture.

Milliron had only a mental image as his guide when he sat down to make his first sculpture — a wooden figure of a woman playing a violin.

“On the workbench, I didn’t even have a model or anything. I just imagined it in a log,” he said. “I made the head on one side and the violin on the other. Then I felt ‘Well, yeah, I like doing this.’”

As he made more pieces, Milliron read books about sculpture, drawing inspiration from the work of other artists.

“Just to be able to look at what everyone else has done — you’re not going to copy it, but you look at it and you think ‘Oh yeah, I could make something like that,’” he said.

About two years after making his first sculpture, Milliron enrolled in art classes at Seton Hill while working at the Jeannette Post Office.

Late art professor Josefa Filkosky taught him about the principles of sculpture design — including movement, repetition, balance, contrast and exaggeration. He still follows them today, seeking to design pieces that harmoniously blend different shapes, lines and angles.

“It was a couple of the best years of my life actually, to be there working with people who were interested in art,” Milliron said.

Legacy lives on

Filkosky became a Sister of Charity at Seton Hill in 1956. Three years later, she began working for the university’s art department. She worked there until 1999, when she died from a brain tumor.

Filkosky’s legacy as a teacher and sculptor live on at Seton Hill and beyond, said 40-year art history professor Maureen Kochanek, who became a close friend and colleague of Filkosky.

Filkosky taught three-dimensional art, metalsmithing and sculpture classes at the university, Kochanek said. She is known for her brightly-colored pipe sculptures.

The sculptures can be found outside of the Seton Hill Arts Center, at the entrance to the university campus, outside of the Greensburg Art Center in Hempfield, off the Fort Pitt Bridge heading into downtown Pittsburgh and even in New York, Kochanek said.

Filkosky challenged her students, Kochanek said, but she gave individual attention to each one to make sure they met their artistic goals.

“I think that is a necessary thing to do for anyone — traditional-age student or a nontraditional-age student,” Kochanek said of working with students one on one. “You’re asking them to take personal and creative risks. That’s scary.”

‘Nibble at it’

For Milliron, art is an outlet. Though he has since retired, Milliron delivered mail and worked as a desk clerk at the Jeannette Post Office for 33 years. Sculpture has given Milliron an opportunity to use his creative energy.

“I think everybody wants to do something other than their occupation,” he said.

Milliron focused on wooden sculptures for about 20 years before transitioning into concrete. It takes six to eight weeks to make a concrete sculpture, he said, but a wooden piece would take him a year.

A wooden sculpture requires meticulous carving, shaping and sanding, Milliron said.

“You eventually have to nibble at it like a mouse,” he said.

Concrete sculptures are easier to shape and mold, he added.

Milliron does not have a favorite sculpture in his collection. He always has ideas for new pieces and hopes to expand into more abstract designs in the future, he said. He admires artists who have mastered exaggeration, the practice of distorting a well-known person or object to make them appear more extreme or dramatic.

“I’d probably be much more successful if I was just going all out and forgot about everything except exaggeration — whatever I’m making out there, just break all the rules and just make it really bizarre,” he said. “But somehow, I think it’s just in us: if you’re going to make a face, you want to make it as true to life as possible.”

Local artists like Milliron have a unique opportunity to make an impact in their community, Kochanek said.

“It’s the idea that if you plant art, beautiful things will grow,” she said.

Kochanek cited the work of the You Are Here gallery in Jeannette, which offers studio and exhibit space to local artists.

“They’re doing community work, and they have workshops. They build benches for different businesses, and they just put beautiful things around Jeannette,” Kochanek said. “Like, wow, isn’t that a great thing?”

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