One of the largest iron foundries for artists in the Midwest is located in-of all places-Solsberry, Indiana, in rural Greene County. The facility provides not only the means to cast iron sculpture, but also the opportunity for an international set of iron artists to work together, and a place for them to display their work.
A Backwoods Sculpture Garden
On sixty acres located far off the beaten track, nestled among trees and rock formations, is a sequence of large, mostly abstract iron sculptures. Gerry Masse opened the Sculpture Trails Outdoor Museum on his family's land in Greene County, Indiana in 2002.
"At first it was just an outdoor museum, a place where we could put our pieces," Masse explained. "With big sculpture, once it goes into a show and comes out of a show, where do you put it? That was kind of the idea."
But the concept grew beyond just providing exhibition space.
Back To Iron's Cradle
Back in the summer of 2001, Jack Gron, Masse's mentor from his graduate program at the University of Kentucky, recruited him to build an iron foundry at the Museum of Steel Sculpture in Coalbrookdale, England, the cradle of the Industrial Revolution.
"My museum is located where cast iron work began," notes Pam Brown, the museum's co-founder and director. "It was marvelous for me when I found that there were these American sculptors who knew how to cast iron."
After building Brown's furnace, Masse started running an annual workshop at the museum: For nine years, Masse's crew spent four weeks each summer teaching a group of mainly British artists to cast iron. When Brown decided to retire from hosting the workshop in England in 2010, she asked Masse to take it over. The decision to accept led him back to the sixty-acre site in south-central Indiana, where he'd set up the outdoor museum in 2002.
The Workshop Goes Stateside
"As soon as we said we'd take it over," Masse recalls, "we got back here and realized we had nothing-no foundry, no studio, nothing."
So Masse quickly built a furnace-the Lady D, dedicated to his mother Diane-and hosted Sculpture Trails' first workshop in July 2010. "The reaction was just unbelievable," Masse remembers. "We had no idea anyone would care, and the response from the community was enough to get us to go ‘man!'"
That response was evident in the size of the crowd that showed up for the Fire at Night Iron Pour on July 23, an opportunity to watch the artists cast their pieces.
Community enthusiasm might also be gauged by its patronage. Last year 1,400 people from the area paid twenty dollars apiece to carve small blocks to be cast into low relief aluminum sculptures for each donor to keep. Having now obtained nonprofit status, the facility is also able to accept donations through the Indiana Arts Commission.
But Sculpture Trails has gotten its name out far beyond the state.
The Global Iron Community
"I come up here for the juice," reveals Nathan Goodson, "for the energy." A renowned iron sculptor from Alabama, Goodson got his chops as a shop technician at Sloss Furnaces, the historic foundry that built the city of Birmingham.
"I could go over to Sloss and cast all the time, but instead, I'll drive nine and a half hours and spend the whole month of July to make art here. I really appreciate who Gerry knows and who he attracts."
"You get more done in two weeks here than in months in the studio," concurs London-based sculptor Richard Rome, "because it's a very special situation. There's a bunch of great people, lots of help, and real camaraderie." A Fellow of the Royal British Society of Sculptors and the Royal College of Art, Rome met Masse when he was running the workshop in England.
The Fire At Night
On the evening of the big iron pour, after the furnace has been burning coke and scrap metal for an hour, and just moments before molten iron starts pouring out the slag holes at the bottom of the tower, Masse assembled the group in a huddle for final instructions.
"It's a matter of safety at all times," Masse explaind. "So there's a crew chief, and a furnace chief, and they communicate with each other. And we also have a mould chief, who knows what is inside of every one of these moulds, and how much metal goes into each one. "
Among the crew, who are suited up in leather smocks, chaps, and fireproof helmets, are eight work-study interns, students and professional artists who have come to trade their labor for experience and an affordable means to cast their sculpture. This year, it happens that six of the eight interns are female. But traditional gender roles don't gain much purchase around here.
"It's about learning and sharing," said Kate Hobby, a professional artist from England in the work-study program. "So, for example, today I'm working with Gerry on the furnace, but yesterday it was Alison, and the day before that it was Toby."
It might seem puzzling that someone would travel so far to spend an entire month in the middle of nowhere hauling metal and hovering around a furnace in the summer sun. But "the minute you see the molten metal tapped from the furnace," Hobby rhapsodizes, "it's like falling in love with the sun. Â It's really primal."