Wendel Heers holds graduate and undergraduate degrees from the University of Minnesota and was a student of Oskar Kokoschka in Salzburg, Austria. He is an Emeritus Professor of the University of Michigan School of Art, and also served as Associate Dean and as Interim Dean. Now retired from the art school, Heers works full time in his studio. He has created large sculptural work for public spaces in the U.S. and Europe.

Heers' work explores the nature of stone, and the interesting and surprising relationships between natural forms - such as water-shaped rocks and stones - and found forms in metal and wood. In some of the sculptures, stones are inset into other stones with springs so they move, and in others the rough natural stone surface plays against a polished mirror-smooth stone, or against the shine of metal.