10 • THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
ARTS
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2002
Art department gathers to play with fire
The KU art department recently received an $80,000 electronic induction furnace for flame-free sculpture casting. But last Saturday, art students and alumni gathered to cast iron sculptures the old fashioned way—with fire. Jayplay writer Ron Knox logged the evening's events.
Art student Becky McKinley inserts a piece of refractory clay on the end of a steel rod into the cupola. A bot was inserted into the well of the cupola to stop the flow of the liquid iron.
Brandon Baker/Kansan
By Ron Knox
Jayplaywriter
In hollow columns of concrete covered with sand, the living liquid filled the empty shapes inside, where no eye could see. Outside the sand-filled barrels, however, the glow flaunted itself, giving light to the empty night and exploding in flames when poured, as the man-made magma erupted atop the make-shift volcano of Mt. Oread.
Of course, making magma requires work. It is the kind of work strong men are paid fifteen dollars an hour to do, sweating inside industrial foundries turning heavy metals — iron, in this case — into everyday products: manhole covers, sewer grates.
But Saturday at the University of Kansas, there was another pursuit at task: the physical construction of art.
Art professor John Hachmeister, who runs the KU art department's foundry, organized what he called an "alumni pour," an iron casting ritual that was attended by both current and former students of his casting class, and several out-of-towners who came to participate in the rare art form.
"People who leave college are sometimes cut off from the art community," Hachmeister said. "This is a way for them to remain involved."
This semester, the foundry offers a new way to liquefy metal for sculpture casting in the form of an electronic induction furnace. The furnace is simple and safe, requiring less time than traditional furnaces and generating no heat. But it will be
weeks before it's up and running, so the recent casting was done the old-fashioned way: using coke, a high-heat derivative of coal, and scraps of iron fed to the fire like a food processor.
Before the pouring began, everyone posed for a group picture. They huddled together, glowing in the light of the fire arms around one another. Behind the white smiles, the group was filthy, wearing coveralls and welding masks. They looked like coal miners or refugees. The smiles were wide. Flash bulbs cracked, lit the scene.
Casting iron in this fashion takes days of preparation, and most of the artists had been in the foundry since early that morning. The cupola, a large steel barrel where the melting took place, had to be prepared, and the patio was transformed into a giant sandbox to fireproof the area. The cupola was then lined with refractory, a fireproof combination of sand and chemicals, to facilitate the nearly 2,000-degree temperatures.
In time, a good portion of the 1,200 pounds of iron was ready to be poured into the sand-bound casts. When a valve of refractory on the cupola was released,the first spurt of iron lava burst forth filling a stone bucket attached to two poles held by students.
While filling the casts, a student's grip gave out under the weight of the iron and bucket. Her clothing caught fire in the process. Quickly, other artists rushed to help, shoveling sand on her clothing and the ground around her. Crisis was averted. Another artist took over the vacant bucket pole, and the pouring continued.
The students ran back into the foundry, over and again, leaving casts to cool indoors and hauling out more wheelbarrows of sand. Nearby, the department's new $80,000 electronic induction furnace sat, clean and quiet, wholly unnoticed in the hyper-activity of the artists.
In the classroom setting, the new furnace
will serve its purpose, according to Hachmeister; allowing for the widest, cleanest array of metals used in the safest possible conditions. But for the students who have learned to cast with coke and barrels of fire, the art is their reward for their labor, their ritual, the work of art.
"It's a dying practice." Hachmeister said. "This kind of iron casting is a performance art, and as it becomes less common, the sense of ritual is lost."
During a pause between pours, Kristy Summers, Stanley senior, sat on the concrete stairs by the foundry. She was out of breath, having just helped pour liquid metal into casts. Her face was black, and her protective suede covers were glazed with ash.
"The new furnace isn't working yet, but when it is, I hope we'll still do this," she said, staring off into the flames leaping from the rusted barrel. "I think this makes it concrete for all of us. It's hard work. Either that, or we all just love the fire."
After only a moment, she was back up, helping to dump more coke and iron scraps into the cupola. For the rest of the evening, the patio of the foundry was a blur of activity, with artists moving casts, pouring iron, helping to patch small leaks in the student-made equipment.
Leaks demanded unscheduled maintenance in the middle of dangerous action. But during it all, the artists remained upbeat. It was a community of people who didn't know one another acting in cohesion.
"You know, we don't have a lot of coke left," Hachmeister said. "Foundries stopped using it, so it's pretty much impossible to get."
After a few years, this kind of thing will be extinct. In some ways, it's really too bad."
Contact rknox at rknox@kansan.com
This story was edited by Sarah Smarsh.
University Theatre to carry comedic theme
By Donovan Atkinson
Jayplaywriter
The 79th season for the University Theatre will present a series of classic comedies from a variety of time periods.
The season promises to be a great training exercise in comedic performance for students, said John Staniunas, artistic director.
- "We will start with a comedy from
Shakespeare and then move forward with Shaw," said Staniunas. "We'll go further with a classic American comedy and end with a classic opera."
The slate of comedies was not deliberately chosen, but occurred by coincidence, Staniunas said. The directing pool for this season submitted mostly comedic scripts.
Staniunas hopes the 2002-2003 season will reflect the professional movement toward shows more upbeat than the dark
productions that dominated theaters in the past.
"And who doesn't love to come to the theater and laugh?" Staniunas said.
The season will open Oct. 4 with William Shakespeare's The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
The ancient Greek tragedy Iphigenia in Aulis, by Euripides, was originally scheduled to open the season in September, but will open Oct. 24. Production was delayed
because of health concerns of one of the scheduled directors.
Paul Meier, associate professor of theater, was involved in an accident this summer while traveling in England. Meier will return to the University in October, but will be unable to direct Always in the End the Truth. It was originally scheduled to open Oct.4, but has been canceled.
Contact Atkinson at detkinson@kansan.com
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