IRON POURING AT SOUTHERN MISS

Southern Miss has one of the largest university-run iron pouring cupolas in the United States. A cupola, also called a blast furnace, is a furnace that is capable of reaching the 2802°F temperature required to melt iron. The Southern Miss cupola has a 32” id and can tap out 1,500 pounds of molten iron with each tap. At recent iron pours over 8,500 lbs of iron was poured. The cupola sits behind our 3D Arts Building on West 4th Street in Hattiesburg, MS; it has a 35' tall stack and a three story super structure complete with electricity and a one ton electric hoist system to bring consumables to the third floor for “feeding” the furnace. The sculpture studio also has a fully electric two ton bridge crane indoors where the molds are place for casting. In addition there is also a 24" id furnace and 18" portable furnace that has traveled to a number of venues for public iron casting demonstrations.

Check out the Southern Miss Department of Art and Design Web site to learn more about the program.

2009 IRON POUR

The date for the 2009 USM Iron Pour is set for Saturday, November 14thth. Burn in begins at 9AM. Everyone who has a COMPLETED mold(s) is welcome to bring it, but all molds need to be on premises Friday, November 13th for floor set-up. There is a charge for iron, or you can bring your own. Since our furnace can accommodate rather large raw materials, like whole break drums, this is a good time to bring the "big" stuff you can't burn in your own foundry. Please contact Jennifer Torres at Jen.torres@comcast.net or call the Sculpture Office at 601-266-6032, for more information or for questions.
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2007 Iron Pour

Check out this slide show from the last pour

or click on "2007 Iron Pour" to view on Fliptrack.com

To hear the music click on the "horn" icon in the lower left of the viewing screen

Images by Richard Nonas

With us for the 2007 iron pour was New York City artist Richard Nonas.

Richard Nonas was born in New York in 1936. He was educated at the University of Michigan, Lafayette College, Columbia University and the University of North Carolina - first in Literature, and then in Social Anthropology. He worked as an anthropologist for 10 years, teaching at the University of North Carolina and Queens College, and doing field work on American Indians in Northern Ontario, Canada, Yukon territory, Canada, and then, for 2 years, in Northern Mexico and Southern Arizona. About 30 years ago, he left anthropology and began to make sculpture. Since then, he has exhibited extensively all over the world making small and very large works both indoors and out, and has written extensively about the culturally dependent intellectual and emotional meanings of sculpture, space and place.

Richard Nonas has in the last few years built and shown sculpture in France , Sweden , Poland , Holland , Spain , Norway , Denmark , Austria , Switzerland , Italy , Germany , Monaco , Mexico , Belgium , Japan , Bosnia , Spain and in many cities of the United States . Nonas' work is in dozens of public and private collections across the globe, including but not limited to, The Guggenheim Museum, New York, New York , The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles , California , The Museum of Modern Art, New York , New York , National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., and the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson .

Richard Nonas worked with Southern Miss sculpture students during the week of November 12 – 17, and gave a free lecture on the Thursday before the pour.

For more information or to join us for future iron pours please contact Jennifer Torres, at jennifer@jentorres.com

Click here to check out a photo album from the 2006 pour.