Stan is a husband to Kiersten Dahl-Shetka (1996) and an awesome father to their two boys, Cairo and Sagan. He is a Full Professor at Gustavus Adolphus College in the Department of Art and Art History (Sculpture and Foundry Department) Since 1979 and in 2024 is still helping the college make its mark!

In 1973, Stanley envisioned the beginning of the World Art Project ® . The World Art Project was first introduced to the public in a one-person show at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in 1988. The World Art Project ® is a lifelong project for the artist. Stan traveled around the world doing the World Art Project ® . He spoke with people from around the world and has received thousands of objects from folks from all around the world to incorporate into a sculpture. You can read more about it at Worldartproject.com.

Stan is an inventor and has a company called Collateral Healing, Inc. that originated in 2007. This is where he researches and invents products from and for companies from their waste stream. Companies who want to “deal with and heal with” their waste stream; turn their waste into an up-cycled product; create a potential revenue for the company and “collaterally heal” (Stan coined the term) the planet step by step (example research product: the top of Towering to Our Future sculpture has a four-panel roof that is recycled-plastic-playground-equipment designed into a building material. It looks like crayons compressed and flattened smoothly into a board!). Stan currently holds two patents on turning any paper or any fiber into stone or wood, without using harmful resins, known as, “Shetkastone” and “Shetkaboard.”

Stanley has been an instrumental part of Towering to Our Future ’s success! Stanley collaborated with Kiersten at every bronze casting, every bronze pour, and the placing of the bronze plaques on the Tower! He created and designed the details for the first roof cap with the unique recycled plastic panels for the Tower. All of the bronze pours were done at Gustavus Adolphus College’s Sculpture and Foundry Department, headed by Stanley Shetka.

NOTE: Stanley’s bronze plaque is in process and we have a bronze plaque in its place that his son, Sagan Shetka, created as a young teen. (Sagan made three bronze plaques during his youth) Sagan graduated in 2023, from Gustavus Adolphus College, with a physics major.

Stanley Shetka’s plaque is in process.