This Q&A is part of a series of stories about Herron’s Distinguished Alumni Award recipients, their careers, and the impact they’ve had on their communities through exceptional practice and/or dedication to the school.
Philip Campbell (B.F.A. General Fine Arts ’89)—a multidisciplinary artist, storyteller, and community advocate whose work centers on human connection—is Herron’s 2025 Distinguished Alumnus.
A creative problem-solving pioneer of the Indianapolis arts scene, Campbell has built a career rooted in challenging norms and driving change. Whether producing thousands of free cloth masks for his “Free PPE” stand during the pandemic, crafting cozy, Kevlar-lined stab-proof blankets for unhoused neighbors, or collaborating with medical institutions and grassroots organizations to amplify marginalized voices, Campbell’s work reflects a deep commitment to equity, empathy, and action. We are honored to celebrate Philip Campbell as the 2025 Herron Distinguished Alumni recipient.
HERRON: When you learned you were the recipient of this year’s award, you expressed surprise. Why is that?
CAMPBELL: I went to Herron and graduated in 1989, and I haven’t really been involved with Herron since.
HERRON: How did your own journey influence your art and lead you to the work you do today?
CAMPBELL: I’ve always had this left-brain, right-brain thing. I had a gallery, consulted for corporations, curated exhibits, and ran art programs—I always had something going on.
I’m 16 years sober and never shy about sharing that. I started making work about my recovery and stories from [12-step] rooms.
Making work in sobriety is very different. I had to start from scratch, and I think it took me five or six years to really regain my confidence again. After five years in the studio, I realized I needed to give back. I learned about peer recovery coaching, took classes, and applied for what I thought was a part-time job—it turned out to be a role as liaison between [Indianapolis Emergency Medical Services], Midtown Mental Health and [Sidney & Lois Eskenazi Hospital’s Michael & Susan Smith Emergency Department]. I didn’t know if I wanted it, but I fell in love with the work.
We provide wraparound services for anyone in the emergency room with a substance use disorder—insurance, recovery housing, Narcan, food, clothing, and more. When I started, we saw 30 patients a month. Last month, my team had 439 encounters. Now we help anyone with substance use disorder and address social determinants of health to give people a good start.
HERRON: How did your time at Herron shape your approach to art?
CAMPBELL: My freshman year was amazing—I got pushed to use all these different materials, and it was a lot of fun. When it came to painting, they wanted oils and real-life stuff. I was airbrushing big paintings in my basement, and they were so against it. So I painted these Bob Ross oil landscapes—really horrible. Peg Fierk got so mad she said, ‘Go home, do what you do, and bring it back in a month.’ From then on, I had independent studies in painting.
I had amazing professors—Robert Egerton, Robert Berkshire, Peg Fierk, Steve Mannheimer, and David Morrison. I loved printmaking with Morrison; he’d assign different methods for each drawing, which opened my mind to new ways of making things. Berkshire would sit in class and draw the figure with us—no outlines, just light and dark. Watching him work was incredible.
Many years later, I opened my gallery and showed Berkshire’s charcoal figure drawings that had never been shown before.
HERRON: What drew you to work with fabric?
CAMPBELL: I want people to get something from what I do. I want it to spark their memories. I want them to touch it.
The ultimate touchy-feely thing for me is a quilt. I remember wrapping up in quilts, and how soft and warm they were. Nobody ever throws away a quilt. They just keep them forever or until they fall apart. That is very cool, and the idea of somebody being protected by my work was even cooler.
But I was afraid to use fabric. It’s unpredictable. Jennifer Smith, who owns Avant Garb, put out a call for sewists to work in the studio. I didn’t know how to do it, but I learned from and worked for her for a couple of months. And then after that, I started making quilts. I received a Christel DeHaan Artist of Distinction Award to make a series of security blankets: a bulletproof blanket lined with Kevlar, a blanket made of military-grade Faraday fabric, a blanket made of $2 bills for financial security. I made one with the giant white lily from the Annunciation on a royal blue background soaked in holy water from St. Peter’s Basilica.
And that eventually led to me making the pieces for the unhoused that were stab-proof. I work off grants and commissions now.
HERRON: Tell us about your latest creative project, COMFORT, an interactive installation which was recently exhibited at The Harrison Center.
CAMPBELL:COMFORT is [an emergency department] harm-reduction, anti-stigma triage space. It’s 12-by-12-foot with a quilt-covered hospital gurney and a U-shaped, suspended curtain quilted on both sides. The quilted panels are made with deconstructed used clothing—some donated by people in recovery, some purchased from Goodwill. The curtain [features] pocket panels filled with Narcan, xylazine test strips, fentanyl test strips, 12-step literature, and sharps containers. I invite the public to take harm reduction items, write letters on [provided] note cards to loved ones lost to addictions, and replace harm reduction items with the letters.
[COMFORT] morphs itself into a memorial over time and is aimed at people that don’t really understand addiction or who have lost people to it. The public can come back through the space and read the testimonies and letters.
Hopefully it’ll be shown elsewhere—I’ll just add more harm-reduction and recovery items in the pockets with the letters.
HERRON: Share your thoughts on the importance of having someone in your corner.
CAMPBELL: I’m always trying to fit my square peg in a round hole. My partner, Autumn, constantly reminds me ‘you can do whatever you want to do. You don’t have to worry about what anybody else thinks.’
That’s really important to hear, and I don’t think enough people get to hear it. It’s nice to have somebody that’s your cheerleader and on your side who understands you better than you understand yourself.
HERRON: What inspires you to put pencil to paper—or needle to fabric?
CAMPBELL: I don’t have a choice. Even when I was unable to make work due to substances, or after substances, I was always itching. There was always something missing—part of my soul wasn’t being fed. I just don’t have a choice but to make stuff.
HERRON: Do you struggle to determine when an artwork is complete?
CAMPBELL: No. I have a vision of what I want my finished piece to look like, and then it becomes a journey of mistakes and covering up my screw-ups. I’m not a sewist—I couldn’t hem your pants. I use a sewing machine as a tool to weld fabric together, so you’re not gonna find beautiful, delicate stitches in my quilts. They are fully functional, in every room of our house, comfortable because they’re made from used clothing—super soft, sometimes thick and heavy with 12 layers.I use a commercial Juki, and I sew with a pair of pliers and a 3-inch needle. Nothing is out of bounds.