Hanna Stiebel desired that her sculptures relate to the environment, to the architecture and the people around it. Her hope is that people become a part of it and feel moved aesthetically. She used her background in dance to create graceful sculptures. Born in Poland and raised in Israel, Stiebel moved to New York to study dance with Martha Graham and learned to understand balance and position in dance through studying with sculptor Manolo Pasqual.

She studied at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, earning degrees there in 1962 and 1963 before traveling to Florence, Italy for a summer to learn the art of bronze casting. She worked to synthesize her interests in dance, mathematics, and physics in her art, creating huge works designed for the specific environments where they would be installed. After teaching for several years at the Roeper City and Country School in Michigan, Stiebel briefly served as director of the school’s art program and served as director of music and dance for United Hebrew Schools but returned to creating art full time.

One of her most noted works, 1981’s “Rhythms and Vibrations” at the Meadow Brook Music Festival Grounds in Michigan, is sixty feet long and fifteen feet high and combines curved and angled aluminum pillars in a graceful representation of sound waves.