A dozen
Grand Valley State University students took 1,200 pounds of broken engine blocks and melted them in a special furnace last week and then poured the metal into sculpture molds.
Flames shot six feet in the air as the steel blocks hit the multi-thousand-degree furnace outside the Calder Fine Arts Center at Grand Valley's Allendale Campus.
It took 15 minutes a piece to melt a solid iron block. Teams of students wearing full-body protective gear handled special ladles and poured the steel in to ceramic molds.
In all, students cast 40 sculptures from the engine blocks, which were donated by Louis Padnos Iron & Metal Company in Holland.
The students collaborated with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago on the pour and will be attending a much larger group pour in Chicago.
Norwood Viviano, the instructor who has taken part in group pours for 10 years, said similar events are fairly rare.
"I think one of the most innovative aspects of it is the collaborative aspects of it," Viviano said. "It's a very cheap and efficient process to recreate somewhere else."
Source: Norwood Viviano
Photograph courtesy Terrnace Weinzierl - All Rights Reserved
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