SELF by Hannah Hones

 

I delved into the body of work Self looking to explore my self identity, particularly within my body and how it relates to it. I chose to cast my body and the imprints or impact it makes in the world as well as the volume I take up within the world.

The first part of this journey was within Critiquing social constructions- bra and bare. In these two pieces I explored the quite literal way that society shapes women's bodies, and how that plays into beauty standards and self worth.

 

The second was Female Nipple as a response to the female nipple being considered pornographic on many social media platforms including those used for artwork such as Instagram.

 

 

Impact imprints was created for two separate reasons, the first wanting to cast my body without taking a literal body casting, and the second representing the internalized anger having to do with the shear amount of sexism, both intentional and non, that a woman faces when working in a predominantly male field such as metal working.

 

Figure: Form was cast to look at the body purely as a form, and how I relate to my body in a purely artistic since. Personal volume was cast to represent the physical space I take up in the world. As a woman, I often feel as though I should take up as little space as possible, to be small, quite, collected, and non-confrontational. As a response to this I cast the fullest parts of my body, those that hold the most volume, in iron to make a space for my body to be where it will not be shrunk or encroached upon.


Hannah Hones, Junior Foundry Fall 2016 National Casting Center Foundry @ Alfred

'I CAN BE THE MUSER' by Jessica Feuer

   

'I Can be The Muser'  Room Installation

It is a societal norm in modern day that we purchase what is needed when it is needed and when items around the home break we either pay others to fix them or purchase a new one. To most this is convenient, though in the world that we live in there are so many conveniences.  Many of these conveniences separate the individual from the things that make up the world around them.

 

I can take responsibility of building and creating the furniture and many necessary items in my home. I then become the "user" after striving to be the "maker".

Finding myself increasingly passionate about closing the gap between the "maker" and the "user" with each new project, I can see the reality of being able to start filtering out the unfamiliar, factory made or imported objects with functional creations made by my own two hands or by the hands of those around me.

 

Finding myself as the "muser" of my own imitate world is only a goal at this part of my life so I have taken the items that I have created in preparing myself for such goal and filled a room. Here I present an elevated snap shot of my largest goal in life.

 

 

'Once Carried Alone'

We all carry a lot around with us. We can fill bags upon bags both literally and metaphorically with the items we use as well as emotions we have. For the better of tomorrow times come where 'packing' a bag and leaving it behind is a healthy habit to find yourself in. Some experiences, traumas or good times, they all pass leaving behind just a relic. As for the future, all we can do it aim for our goals, project (if you will) an idea of what it is we want and go for it.

I was lying to myself as I set up for the presentation of my past, present and future featuring myself and all the baggage I carry thought out my days. I say this because I am not alone anymore, I have no need to hold the weight all myself. My partner has made life less heavy for me. If roles here, in the performance part of this installation were reversed, I would lighten his load as well.

by Jessica Feuer 
Junior Foundry Fall 2016

IN HONOR OF THE UNENDING by Brittany Belvette

'In Honor Of The Unending'

I would like to call myself an artist. Art is something I need in my life. However, I do not follow the harmful “requirement” that I let my art kill me. I don’t eat, sleep, and bleed art. Does it stress me out? Yes. Does it cause panic attacks? Yes. Have I had more emotional breakdowns in this semester than I have in a year? Absolutely. Does that mean I’m letting my art kill me? No. It just means that even with all of the mental instability, creating art is something that is worth it all.

I’ve focused on my mental illness in my art for quite some time now as it is something I cannot escape. It is something that will never leave me so I look to explore it in a healthy and creative way and maybe even take some people along for the ride. I want remove the shame often associated with mental illness. I am not trying to romanticize my illness but to admire that I have come this far whilst dealing with it.

Working with cast aluminum, bronze, and iron has been the best and worst experience for me in my life as an artist so far. Almost every process it took to lead up to the act of pouring and every process it took to finish my works lead to exhaustion beyond the physical plane. The smells, the sounds, and the sensations of sand, the vibration of grinding metal, and the heat of flames left me in a state of sensory overload and in turn anxiety attack almost every time. I learned the art of stepping away from my work eve when I knew I was low on time.

Even with all of these struggles, I think this is the best sculptural work I’ve done in my life so far. I still have a long way to go both mentally and educationally, but I am very happy with the present.

Brittany Belvette  : Junior Foundry Fall 2016

National Casting Center Foundry @ Alfred

THE BRONZE STURGEON : Finds A New Home In New Hope

This time last year our visiting Foundry Technician Kate Graves loaded up her 9 foot long bronze casting of a beautiful Sturgeon. Its been a project in the making for many a year and we were happy to lend a hand in the casting of it and pleased to hear that it has now found a new home along the banks of the Delaware River in New Hope for all the public to enjoy! 

Kate has kindly shared the making of the Sturgeon story with us here  :-

“Returning Sturgeon to the River” is a sculpture series that began with a chance meeting ...

RETURNING STURGEON TO THE RIVER

"I believe in the power of the imagination

to remake the world."

—J.G. Ballard

As an artist, continual inspiration comes from exploring local natural and built environments. By documenting buildings and trees, my sculpture and paintings are like three-dimensional portraits that exist as snapshots made during the arc of the subject’s temporal existence. When the tree blows over or the house is torn down, people who recognize them in my work remember them, allowing them in this way to live on.

I identify with my subjects and am entirely in their thrall while examining them. Fascination with textures and the decrepit majesty of abandoned buildings in Trenton led to much research and other inquiry about the social, economic and political history of this place. Making art that alludes to entropy and the effects of neglect over time has deepened my ability to nonverbally indicate the evidence of unseen forces. Currently, the ancient and wondrous Acipenseridae calls to me from the river when I paddle my kayak on the tidal waters, watching the endless variety of textures and reflections, wondering what lies beneath.

The Delaware River is home to a genetically distinct population of Atlantic sturgeon, one now seriously compromised by 19th century caviar harvesting and pollution from heavy industry along the river. Once at an aquarium near Portland, Oregon I met a fourteen-foot long sturgeon. This 150 million year old living fossil regarded me with the weight of its own history, armored with rows of bony shields. Hovering in the water at eye level behind the plate glass, it surveyed me with an ancient gaze. I knew then that I would make sculpture to document these creatures. Whether the Sturgeon Sculpture Series will be a testament to a close call with extinction, or a memorial for something not yet gone, remains to be seen.

The New Jersey State Museum has in its Natural History archive a taxidermy mount of a Delaware Bay sturgeon that is estimated by Curator David Parris to be 100 years old. Using this as a model, my sturgeon pattern can be digitally scaled up or down. Castings in iron, stainless steel, plaster and resin have been created at a ten-inch scale. Additional planned sculpture includes a glass casting at two feet long, and a cast iron public art piece for installation within sight of the river at twelve feet long.

The project has begun: of the six sculptures produced at the 2010 Art All Night Abominog International Iron Pour, four are in private collections. Two were given permanent mounting provisions and have been installed on rocks in the river.

—Kate Graves, September 2010

 Rendering from a digital scan of a Delaware Bay sturgeon, patterns have been CNC milled by Digital Atelier at ten inches and at eight feet long. Iron, bronze and aluminum castings at ten inches have been made, but finding the right time and place to realize the big fish was elusive.

My rubber mold experience was limited, and my home studio was not well suited for the job. When the opportunity to work at Alfred University arose, it was an exciting move: access to a 7,000 sq. ft. facility, led by the dynamic Professor Coral Penelope Lambert, opened the horizon for possibility.

The National Casting Center Foundry is a busy place. In February 2015 we hosted the annual “Pour Your Heart Out” event, pouring (2000#?) of both induction and cupolette melted iron. Sculpture 101 student projects included large scale “Exquisite Corpse” parts in iron, and small scale centrifugal castings in bronze. With so much going on, as Foundry Technician, it was clear I needed to establish a time frame for making the rubber mold.

The window came in March; one week, during Spring Break. Materials included a 5 gallon kit of Rebound 25 (a paintable rubber that takes gorgeous surface detail) and a 5 gallon kit of Free Form Air for the mother mold, both manufactured by Smooth On. Their Technical Support was a tremendous resource for answering questions, as was their website, where basic tutorial videos are supplemented with documentation provided by users in the field.

To prepare the pattern for mold, on the first day, I cut the fins off and mounted them separately on boards. Using the overhead hoist I levitated the pattern and blocked it with foam and wood to stabilize it, then introduced 3/8 rolled steel rings with a 21-inch diameter. Using an extended 1/2” drill bit I pierced the pattern multiple times, measured my hole depth, cut rebar to length and TIG welded the rebar skewers to the steel. 

 

On day two, the first coat was a big step. Senior Michelle Kwiecien assisted with the application. We were vigilant about mixing the rubber, and it went on smoothly. We added green Silc Pig pigment to the second layer, so it was easy to tell when the second coat was complete.

The third and fourth coats were more involved, as I had to place and secure pre-cast t-strips and ball keys with T pins. I put a lot of consideration into the parting lines, as the mold sections needed to draft but some areas had deep undercuts. The mold is in ten sections: two each for the head and tail, with the body being divided into front and back halves of three sections each. The aluminum shim stock I purchased for the job ran short, so I cut up aluminum cans to supplement the shims, which I carefully inserted along the cut lines over the whole pattern. 

 Day four I finished the last batch of rubber, and began the mother mold. Free Form Air is so light it floats, and it’s impressively strong. It is mixed in equal parts, so I made up a number of well packed ‘snowballs’ and hand mixed the batches one at a time. Nitrile gloves protected my hands, and I used a steel pipe with ½ inch wood spacer strips to roll out the material between a top and bottom sheet of wax paper. I ended up needing 7 gallons total of the material at that thickness.

Once the whole pattern was encased (day six) I was able to begin pulling the hard outer shell off. After removing the shims, I cut the rubber with brand new X-acto blades. It released perfectly, resulting in ten sections ready for wax casting.

The next stage was making the wax's and sand molds for which we used the lost wax process ready for bronze casting which took another month or so in the making.

After the wax was melted out over a 24 hr period in the kiln then molds were lined up on the pour floor. All of the molds were cast in bronze on the same pour day : The pouring team was made up of Graduate Student Kevin Dartt, Myself and Professor Coral Lambert.

 Once cast the sections were let to cool down and broken out of the sand molds: they look pretty rough at first but after sometime chasing and cleaning the texture was magnificent just like the majestic Sturgeon itself !

Final finishing work took place back in New Jersey. The Sturgeon Sculpture will be dedicated on Memorial Day Weekend : to find out more about the event follow this link to the article in the New Hope Free Press : 

http://newhopefreepress.com/2016/05/17/nine-foot-sturgeon-arrives-on-banks-of-delaware-river-in-new-hope/ 





Kate Graves installing the 'Sturgeon' in New Hope