In conjunction with the USUK Public Iron Pour, SSW hosted an Open Door Summer Celebration on Friday 20th July!
The afternoon kicked-off with a Potluck Picnic, with contributions from SSW as well as members of the community that came along while the USUK artists prepared the furnace for pour and made last-minute adjustments to moulds, and the musicians warmed-up.
Members of the public also got the chance to take part in the proceedings, as USUK artist Jeff Crawford, performance artist Darren Farquhar and technical placement Nam Le, aided them in the process of creating individual scratch moulds. This involved carving an image or text of their own design into sand blocks to be poured alongside the work of the USUK artists – they all came out beautifully!
There were plenty of other activities to also get involved in, including Clay Play, Junior Sculpture and Face-Painting, led by SSW staff and generous local parents. Kevin Morris, Ceramics Technical Resident, built a paper kiln with the aid of Arts Development Assistant Jennifer Argo. Jennifer found she also had some messy assistants as they went about cladding the paper kiln in paper and clay slurry. Over the course of the afternoon there were some fantastic creations, including kinetic robots made from recycled materials, ceramics tiles, paintings and animal carvings made from pizza-clay. Sarah, aged 2, the granddaughter of SSW’s own Christine Muller, also created some very innovative intermedia pieces. The 2-year-old combined fragments of clay painted onto a background of paper, definitely an installation artist in the making – remember you saw her here first!
During the after-pour BBQ we were joined by local musician Nassim Donald, and then the Willie-G Trio saw us on into the evening. The music and dancing was the perfect end to what has been a wonderful USUK Cast Iron Symposium, and we wish a warm goodbye to the artists who have been keeping us on our toes and seriously laughing over the last two weeks.
Many thanks to those who attended the event and took part in the pour; we were very privileged to have such a skilled group of artists visiting for USUK, and such a lovely bunch of people joining us for the celebrations to boot!
To view images of the USUK Public Iron Pour and other events from the Open Door Summer Celebration visit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sswlumsden/sets/72157630730390048/
Keep an eye on the blog for more photos to follow of the works created at the event.
