Jack Kirk
Features Reporter

Photos by Malissa Smithey

The soundtrack at the foundry in the Fine Arts building goes a little something like this: Sand, drill, thud, mix, whir, clang, at any time, day or night.

The room is decorated with miscellaneous projects, some in progress while others have been abandoned by past students. In one corner, next to the sink, sits a large orange bottle, its decal reading, “Orange Goop,” while the labels on shelves in the center of the room read, “Gloves,” “Tattered Gloves,” “Misc. Hoses,” “Misc. Broken Hoses” and “MBS,” an acronym for miscellaneous broken s***.

A new club on campus, the Sculptors Guild, formed recently “out of frustration for all the broken tools and deciding how we could pull a fundraiser together,” Nick Vialpando, president of the new club said. “[We wanted to see] how we could raise these funds to do it.”

“Don’t forget the TIG welder,” a student added. The somewhat functioning machine was added to a list of 80 pieces of equipment and tools that need attention.

“We were doing the teacher evaluations last semester, and we were writing down all the stuff that was broken,” Jessica Lane, club secretary said.

Atop the list was the chop saw.

“Here, let me cut this piece really fast,” one of the student artists said as hefired up the chop saw. As he began to cut, the lights dimmed and the saw lost power. It soon found a home outside, where it no longer blew fuses.

“We are hoping to start a community-type program in the art department,” Vialpando said. “We want to get ceramics in on it as well.”

According to Lane, the sculpture students have to do a certain number of projects a semester. Each of these projects must be the product of a sole artist, and after each project, the artist gets a critique on the process, the final product and other options they could have explored.

This past week, along with multiple classes, the Sculptors Guild hosted an iron pour. Students dressed in silver suits wore protective facial shields as they poured liquid iron heated to 2,700 degrees in the cupola furnace into molds made of sand. The entire section of the art building was roped off, students stood around the side of the yellow “caution” tape watching the iron pour.

“We do an iron pour every semester as another medium for our art,” Vialpando said.

Prior to the iron pour, Lane could be found frequently in the foundry, hands dirty and clothes worn out. Her mold for the iron pour was so big that she had to place clay over stacked boards just to keep the 600 pound sand mold together.

According to rumor, the heaviest mold was about double the weight of Lane’s sand mold.

According to Lane, the Sculpture Guild is looking to change their name to Fire Arts Guild to include the other 3-D arts.

“We meet every Thursday at 4:30, but I’m here all the time,” Lane said.

jkirk@mavs.coloradomesa.edu