Multi-Level Foundry
Liz Ensz and Lloyd Mandelbaum
2 week course || SCULPT 660 001 || 3 credit hours || Lab Fee: $200
In this multilevel metal casting course, students will learn the fundamentals of pattern generation, simple and multi-part mold making techniques with sodium silicate bonded sand, casting with bronze, aluminum, and iron, and finishing and patination techniques for their castings. Explorations will be informed by the materiality of molten metal and molding processes, the history and technologies of metal casting, and discussion of cast metal sculpture in contemporary art. In the spirit of “there is no “I” in foundry,” teamwork and safe foundry practices form the foundation of the course. Students will be encouraged to experiment and respond to the natural environment with patterns made at Ox-Bow in an open-air sculpture studio.
FACULTY
Liz Ensz
Revisionist Landscapes (series)
cast iron
40” x 44” x 20”
2017
Liz Ensz was born in Minnesota to a resourceful family of penny-savers, metal scrappers, and curators of cast-offs. With an interdisciplinary approach, their work ruminates on the mass-cultural investment in disposability and the human desire to imagine permanence through emblems, monuments, and commemoration. Ensz has exhibited textiles and sculpture nationwide, including Franconia Sculpture Park, Shafer, MN; Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY; Roots and Culture Contemporary Art Center, Chicago, IL; Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA; and Goucher College, Baltimore, MD. Awards include The John Michael Kohler Arts/Industry Program in Foundry, Sheboygan, WI; Salem Art Works, Salem, NY: Playa, Summer Lake, OR; LATITUDE, Chicago, IL; and Blue Mountain Center, Blue Mountain Lake, NY; City of Chicago DCASE Individual Artist Grant, and The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Travel Fellowship, among others.
Lloyd Mandelbaum
Part of Sequential Silhouettes Series
aluminum and wood, 19"
2018
Lloyd Mandelbaum is an artist and owner of the art casting foundry Chicago Crucible, which has been producing cast bronze, aluminum, and iron sculpture for public and private clientele since 2009. Lloyd received his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with an emphasis in metal arts and has been in the field ever since. Lloyd also designs and builds foundry equipment for himself, other businesses, and institutions. Lloyd’s personal sculpture is figurative and abstract and is intended to evoke an energetic liveliness despite being made of static cast metal. In addition to operating his business and creating his own work, Lloyd has taught, lectured, spoken on panels, and consulted on foundry craft, operation, construction, and development for universities, industry, and individual artists across the country and internationally.