cast iron | Dylan Ethan Collins

Last week, I was in Birmingham, Alabama, for the National Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron Art & Practices (NCCCIAP). The backdrop for this biennial event was Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark, a truly a remarkable venue that stands out as America’s only blast furnace from the last century being preserved and interpreted as an historic industrial site. There was a great slate of activities for the NCCCIAP, including hands-on demonstrations, mold making workshops, student cupola competitions, guest furnace demonstrations, panel discussions, and art exhibitions. The grassroots, intergenerational character of the NCCCIAP was incredibly inspiring, and I hope to get back to Sloss for the next iteration of this event.

: Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark

: Visitor’s center at Sloss

: Flurry of activity in Casting Shed #2

: Large production furnace in Casting Shed #2

: “Wakey Wakey” by MESH Collective Art

: This performance by Joe McCreary, Healther Spencer Holmes, Micheal Bonadio, and Holly Reese, featured a feast cooked on a giant cast iron skillet

: Giant skillet = equally giant spatula

: Sand mold fabrication in the casting shed

: Aaran Schmidt working on a large mold

: Kurt Dyrhaug and Jeremy Entwistle setting up the Texas Atomic Iron Commission’s guest furnace

: Apollo 11 guest furnace

: Charlie Scott, Ed Parrish Jr., and Jeremy Entwistle look on while the furnace goes under blast

: Charlie Scott and Kurt Dyrhaug

: Kurt tapping the furnace

: Charlie skimming while the pour team fills molds

: Charlie skimming while the pour team fills molds

: Charlie skimming while the pour team fills molds

: Texas Atomic Iron Commission pour crew

: “Women at Work” performance by Lisa Evans

: This performance piece dealt with gender roles , domestication, and stereotypes

: Participants pouring molten iron into a running washing machine

: “The Digital Impact,” a panel discussion chaired by Teresa Lind, featuring McArthur Freeman, Frankie Flood, Mary Neubauer, and Ken Payne

: Keynote address by Jack Gron

: Curated Professional Exhibition in the Sloss Visitor’s Center, featuring works from the expanding cast iron community

: Jack Gron, “Surfin’ Outta Sparkle City”

: Allen Peterson, “Let’s All Be Beekeepers When We Grow Up”

: My sculpture “Nothing Happened #1”

: Kurt Dyrhaug, “Tonka 52”

: Michael “Bones” Bonadio, “Monkey in the Middle”

: Adam Bodine, “What You Say”

: Keith Kaziak, “The Mighty Samson (isolated as Sylvester)”

: Nicole Bovasso, “Caedite, Vexate, Ligate Vinculis”

: Tanner Hoffman, “Liminality”

: Aaran Schmidt, “Untitled”

: Joel Weissman, “Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch’entrant (abandon all hope)”

: Christyn L. Overstake, “#63.4/9/2016: 38.0406 N, 84.5037 W. Two Four”

: Jeremy Entwistle, “Weighting”

: Tobias Flores, “We Built This Country With Hammers and Boob Sweat”

: Robbie Barber, “Ferox”

: Scott Marini, “Home of The Brave Series IV”

: Steven Torres, “All American Anchor”

: Michael Louis LeBlanc, “Key to My Heart/Whitney Polich”

: Luke Sides, “Cupcake”

: Ben Woodeson, “Run don’t walk…”

: This sculpture was part of the Juried Exhibition at the University of Alabama Birmingham’s Project Space Gallery

: Kelly Wilton, “Pile (Variation)”

: David Fricke, “An Implement of Social Cultivation”

: Erin Cunningham, “Knee”

: Cassidy Frye, “Won’t Let You Leave”

: Delany Bal, University of Kentucky, “Blood on the Risers”

: This sculpture was part of the Curated Student Exhibition at Space One Eleven, a non-profit gallery in downtown Birmingham

: Alex Townsend, University of Southern Mississippi, “The Pieces That Hold Us Together”

: Jennifer Allen, University of Alabama at Birmingham, “Level Headed”

: Curtis Turner, MassArt, “Self-portrait”

: Payton Reedy, University of Southern Mississippi, “Cycle”

: Christen Parker, University of Mississippi, “Two Headed Boy”

: View of Sloss’s iconic skyline

: Beautiful abandoned excavator in the Sloss landscape

: Detail view of excavator bucket

: Sculptures such as this dot the landscape at Sloss

: Old casting ladles outside the Visitor’s Center

: Side view of Casting Shed #2

: View from the Furnace Apron

: Large tuyeres for the blast furnace

: View from the Blowing Engine Room

: Wood patterns in the engine room

: Scenes from the engine room

: Largest wrench ever in the engine room

: Amazing rust patterns on the machinery

: Didactics outlining history of iron production at Sloss

: Ladle car for transporting molten iron

: Old tools in Casting Shed #1

: Amazing murals from Sloss’s heyday under the Eastern Viaduct of the highway

Here are two recently completed cast iron school desk sculptures, from the 39 & Holding series. To create these sculptures, I first placed sunflowers on the desk tops, and then resin bonded sand molds were packed around these forms. After the molds hardened, the desks & sunflowers were removed and the pieces were cast as open-faced molds. The first piece in this series collapsed during casting, but its irregular form was incredibly intriguing, so I decided to work with the casting in this raw state. After being cast, these pieces were heated & finished with a brass brush & paste wax, which gave them a rich, lustrous finish.

The title of this series references the classic Jerry Lee Lewis song “39 & Holding,” a tune about the inevitable cycles of aging which became considerably more relevant in the past couple of years as I transitioned out of my thirties. I decided to carve thirty-nine hash marks into each of the molds, creating a deep, gestural tally to signify the passage of time. Sunflowers have long been featured in both art and religion as symbolic markers of growth and decay, and they were a prominent fixture in the rural landscape where I grew up, so I had a range of conceptual, art historical, and auto-biographical reasons for using these flowers as imagery.