During my 2022 sabbatical, I explored three areas of labor and manufacturing.  The objective was to bring attention to these areas and the outsourcing of US industry.  The first section employed old wooden foundry patterns and recreated them in cast salt.  The second focused on remaking outsourced objects in bronze.  The third is more of an exploration of thermite welding.  Namely, how to adapt the “thermite welding” process to metal casting.  This area is not on display as it is still in the exploratory stages.

This has been a continuing theme in my work as my family heritage has been in the foundry and steel industry.   The main two connections come from both of my grandfathers.  My maternal grandfather worked for Morgan Engineering in Alliance, Ohio, where they still make bridge cranes for the steel industry and other industrial applications.  My paternal grandfather moved his family from Pittsburgh to Warren Ohio in the 1950s to work at Copperweld Steel.  He was a “roll-turner” who later became a draftsman, designing the rolls that shaped the steel he had formed as a roll-turner.  This side of my family's lineage in the steel industry stretches back four generations to England.   

My intention is for the work to be displayed as if it were an “artifact,” a precious item that should be cherished and protected due to its scarcity.

Artifacts

Description: A reinterpretation of antique wood foundry patterns.  Now cast in rock salt, the desire is to bring attention to an element of manufacturing that was an integral part of shaping modern society.

Materials: cast salt (sand)

Re-Made in the U.S.A

Description: Found objects recast in bronze with new lettering added to symbolically reclaim a certain number of manufactured objects now made overseas. 

Materials: bronze (lost wax)

Thermite Casting

Description: The third area explored was thermite welding used for fusing railroad rails together.  The goal was to adapt the process for metal casting via a sand mold.  

This is still in the exploratory stages as typical foundry sand's melting point is 3,200F and the thermite process can reach 5,000F.

Materials: thermite crucible, premix and mold