Sculpture Trails Outdoor Museum: An Immersive Art Experience in Southern Indiana
“Sculpture Trails Outdoor Museum is a nonprofit designed to help the community learn about sculpture in a hands-on way,” says Gerry Masse, Founding Director of Sculpture Trails Outdoor Museum.
Sculptor Gerry Masse created the museum in the early 2000s when he began installing his and his colleague’s work here on family property. Today, the museum boasts three miles of trails and nearly 200 sculptures.
Masse states, “If you love the arts and you love nature, it's a really cool place to come and hang out.”
Casting Iron: A One-of-a-Kind Artist Internship Program
Each summer, these quiet hills are brought to life as dozens of artists gather to do something spectacular: design and pour their own cast iron sculptures.
“When artists want to cast iron, a lot of times they can't in their own studio all by themselves, mainly because it really takes a team,” explains Masse.
And that’s why for more than a decade, Gerry has been inviting aspiring cast iron artists from around the world to come to the Sculpture Trails for an intensive four-week internship.
“This internship program is a fantastic opportunity because there's literally 20 to 30 artists the whole entire month working together as a team, producing stuff that there's no way they can produce on their own, and in fact, they may never produce something like that again,” says Masse. “By the time they're done with their internship, they will have cast at least 20 to 30,000 pounds of iron and produced over 60,000 pounds of sand molds. That's usually more than students will get in five years of college. The internship has become quite known around the world.”
The process of creating a cast iron sculpture is long and labor-intensive. And it starts with sourcing raw materials. Each morning, scrap iron is broken up and sorted into tidy batches for melting. Coke, a coal-based fuel, is also sorted into batches. As for the sculptures, they usually begin with a pattern.
Masse explains, “A lot of artists like to use styrofoam, wax, oil-based clay, wood. It's usually whatever they're comfortable working with.”
The finished patterns are carefully packed with a sand/glue mixture which dries into a rock-hard mold. Once the sand is set, the patterns are removed, and the hollow molds are prepped to receive molten iron.
Then comes the fun part.
As night sets in, the furnace is loaded with layers of coke and iron, and ignited. As temperatures climb above twenty-two hundred degrees Fahrenheit, liquid iron drips its way to the base of the furnace, delivering several hundred pounds of molten metal every few minutes.
Laura Gonzalez, an Artist-in-Residence at the Sculpture Trails Outdoor Museum, says, “When we pour at night, it feels like magic. Like you just finish pouring one ladle, and then another one's coming straight from the furnace. It's like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. But then there are moments where you can just stand and look at the furnace and you're like, ‘wow, this is really happening right now. There's molten metal in that furnace, and I'm going to have it in about ten seconds flat.’
“Art is great, sculpture is great, but metal casting,” Gonzalez muses. “You don't do that anywhere else. And you can't do it the way that we do it here, anywhere else.”
An Outdoor Museum Experience Built on Community and Collaboration
Professional artists can also book one to three weeks on-site, taking advantage of this temporary iron foundry to pursue any projects they wish.
“I'm coming from West Texas. That's where my studio is. This is my ninth year,” artist Jarrod Beck says. “I love Sculpture Trails because this is a place where I can experiment. So that means I get to test ideas, see something being made, pour this thing, crack it open the next day, and then respond to it. And that really fits the way that I am as an artist. There are no other places that I can do that.”
That freedom to experiment isn’t accidental.
Masse explains, “Cast iron is [relatively] new, emerging the 1950s and 60s. Iron really gives sculptors a chance to be free and really don't worry about history. Another thing that they could put aside and just use their own artistic voice. And to me, Sculpture Trails is here to help that push.”
Clara Romero, an intern at Sculpture Trails Outdoor Museum says, “I've never worked in a place where you've got people who are in charge who are so passionate about what they're doing. They aren't looking for people who are extremely knowledgeable in the sector. They are using this space to teach people who are interested in it. I think that is exactly what internships are about. And it's hard to find internships like that.”
Once the casts have cooled, the molds are broken up to reveal the new sculptures within. Many will find a home at the Sculpture Trails.
“All the cast iron sculpture that's made this month, it'll either end up in two spots. Either it can be entered into our cast iron exhibition, and that's a two-year ongoing show for these artists. We'll only pick maybe 10 to 20,” Masse states. “All the other things, they just go off home with the artists. They sell them, they put them in galleries. Who knows? They could stick them in the garden.”
Whether they end up in a garden, a gallery, or right here on the trails, these sculptures will remain sturdy reminders of all the hard work and community-building taking place here summer after summer.
“I think the exposure to a lot of people that are just like them is what the main thing they're going to get out of it. Besides all the experience and an awesome resume. They don't realize they're going to stay working in this field and they're going to need each other's help,” concludes Masse.
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The above video is a clip from Journey Indiana from WTIU. You can watch more segments and full episodes at pbs.org/show/journey-indiana/
