Annual UW Iron Pour is Saturday

September 25, 2012
Man working on equipment
Associate Professor Ashley Hope Carlisle checks the gauges on an iron casting furnace that can heat molten iron up to 2,700 degrees. (UW Photo)

Heated to 2,700 degrees, molten iron will flow Saturday, Sept. 29, at 1 p.m. on the north side of the University of Wyoming’s new Visual Arts Building at 22nd Street and Willett Drive.

After preparing for weeks, UW students come together every September to recycle donated materials to create art, says Ashley Hope Carlisle, associate professor in the UW Department of Art. In 2004, she built an iron casting furnace to be able to  teach the students how to make varying scale sculpture using scrap iron, a little elbow grease and a team mindset to accomplish a set goal: to make art as communication with the world around them.

Residents of Laramie and Wyoming have given scrap to recycle, and Pacific States Pipe Co. in Provo, Utah, donates the fuel. All that is left is to create molds and work together to turn the rusty gifts into molten metal.

“Schools from all over the region come to UW to pour iron with our students, which offers great connections and fosters working together to accomplish a great deal,” Carlisle says.

People of all ages are welcome to view the process, and are invited to partake in the fun by creating a tile in iron for $10. Proceeds help to fund students’ traveling expenses to conferences and support exhibition opportunities.

For more information or to donate scrap iron to the UW sculpture area, contact Carlisle at (307) 766-3354 or email ahc1@uwyo.edu.

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