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5TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CONTEMPORARY CAST IRON ART

April 5th - 9th 2006 at The Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Site, Shropshire, England.

Brad Allen is currently the Area Head and Assistant Professor in Sculpture at the University of Montana in Missoula, MT, USA. He is in his first year as full-time professor, and recently moved to Montana from Southern Illinois University—Carbondale where he obtained an MFA in sculpture in 2005. This is where he honed mold making and casting skills, as well as an interest in landscape, weather, and westerns. Brad recently participated in “Iron in the West” at New Mexico Highlands University, and in 2005 built and demonstrated a cupola for the Southern Conference on Cast Iron Art at Sloss.

Rick Batten was first involved with iron casting through the gracious generosity of Charles Hook and Deborah LaGrasse in Tallahassee, Florida during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Later (1995-98) Batten was the 1st iron-casting artist-in-residence at Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark in Birmingham, Alabama. In 1998, in association with Johnny P. Williams, he organized Alabama Art Casting in Birmingham, and it's foundry facility at the Tannehill Furnaces. Currently he lives in Starachowice Poland and is engaged in various ongoing projects with The Museum of Natural History and Technology in Starachowice, The University of Mining and Metallurgy in Krakow, the Academies of Fine Art in Krakow, Wroclaw, and Gdansk, and with the Ironbridge Open Air Museum of Steel Sculpture in Coalbrookdale, England.

George Beasley was born in Ironton, Ohio in 1943. He achieved a B.F.A degree at the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1968 and a M.F.A. at Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1970. He is a tenured Professor of Fine Art and Coordinator of the Sculpture Program in the School of Art and Design at Georgia State University. He exhibits internationally and his work is found in numerous private, corporate and institutional collections. Inspiration for imagery in his sculpture and drawings has been developed through research into Celtic influences on European foundry history and practice. Issues of Sociology as molded by immigration patterns in the iron industry have had a profound affect on this research. Site-specific installations have been built to substantiate this research. They are at first performances, enabling the viewer to briefly experience the "dance" of iron making. The structures remain, giving visual testimony to the event. A series of cast bronze and iron sculptures have been made that derive their inspiration and composition from these events. They often serve as documents containing notation on the surface through the use of Ogham markings and Gallic verse. Presently he divides his time between residences in Atlanta and in Northeast Scotland near the Scottish Sculpture Workshop where he serves as member on their board of directors.

James Brenner is a Chicago-based sculptor and Director of Chicago Sculpture Works. He received his MFA in Sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Brenner’s work ranges from large-scale, interactive steel sculptures to collaborative, site-specific, public art projects to gallery exhibitions. All of these bodies of work ask the viewer not only to observe, but also to engage to become a viewer/participant either in the process of the making or the way the sculpture is experienced. His first collaborative public sculpture project was in ‘94; since then he has integrated the cast metal process with the collaborative process. He has exhibited at the Snug Harbor Cultural Center, NY, Discovery Museum, CT, Tweed Museum, MN, Navy Pier, Chicago, and Franconia Sculpture Park. His sculpture can be seen in the collections of Robert and Karen Duncan, Nathan Manilow Sculpture Park. New York Mills Sculpture Park, City of Chicago: Margate Park, City of Wilmette, Cerdian Corp. Smurfit Stone Corp, and Mycogen Corp. He has been a visiting artist at the Rochester Institute of Technology, the US/UK Sculpture Symposium, Hitchcock Industries and Franconia Sculpture Park where he was awarded a Jerome Emerging Artist Fellowship.

Pam Brown, Hon. FRBS, Sculptor and Co-Founder of the Ironbridge Open Air Museum of Steel Sculpture together with her husband, Roy Kitchen FRBS (1926 -97). She is currently its director.

Robert Cooke. MFA Cranbrook Academy of Art - Bloomfield Hills, Michigan Retired professor of art, Rutgers University, Mason Gross School of the arts, recipient of grants from New Jersey State Council of the Arts, National Endowment of the Arts. Numerous Solo and Group exhibitions. Currently involved in developing studio in residence in the Pocono Mountains of Pa. Continues the development and colaboration of sound sculpture with composer Daniel Goode of New York C ity. Most recent exhibition and performance at Jack Tilton Gallery in New York City. Recent casting of large life-size image "sleeping man" sculpture at Buffalo State University. Has taught internationally including China and Zimbabwe.

David de Haan was educated in London and has a BA in Art & Design and an MA in the History of Technology. After 9 years at the Science Museum in London, he joined Ironbridge in 1978 as Curator of the Elton Collection (books, painting, prints and drawings on the Industrial Revolution. Promoted several times over the last 27 years, and now Programme Director of the Ironbridge Institute and Deputy Director of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Responsibilities include directing the postgraduate courses in Heritage Management and Museums Management at the Ironbridge Institute; and responsible for the Museum’s Library, Archives and Archaeology departments.

Josh Dow of 'The Iron Guild' which was formed in January of 2003 by a group of sculpture students attending Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. Since that time, the Iron Guild has produced and performed nearly two-dozen events throughout New England, ranging from demonstrations of traditional iron foundry to site-specific performance art. Laurie Carman, Véronique d'Entremont, Josh Dow, Lauren Holmgren, Aaron Legg and Matt Stone comprise the Iron Guild's executive board.

Laurence Edwards is a Sculptor. He runs Butley Mills Studios, which is a collective of thirteen studios and a Foundry set on a beautiful salt marsh on the Suffolk coast. A part time lecturer at Norwich School of Art he exhibits his work widely throughout the UK and Europe..He hosted and helped to set up the first US UK Iron pour residencies in the mid nineties and has been a advocate of Iron pour events and residencies since, attending conferences and pours in America and the UK.

Bruce Gernand makes nearly all his cast iron work during the Open Air Museum of Steel Sculpture summer workshops. He often collaborates with artist/architect Anderson Inge in these projects. Gernand works in a variety of other materials and has had recent artist-in-residencies (both in Holland) at the European Ceramics Workcentre (EKWC) and Beeldenstorm/Daglicht where he made prints and cast work in bronze and aluminium. These residencies were supported by grants from the Arts and Humanities Research Board and Arts Council England. He teaches at Central Saint Martins in London where he is 3D Pathway Leader. He lives and works at his studio in Norfolk.

Thomas Gipe. During his 30-year career as a sculpture professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Edwardsville, Illinois, Gipe served on local, regional, national and international committees including the Mid-America College Art Association and the College Art Association. He co-founded the International Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron Art with Professor Wayne Potratz. Gipe was a pioneer in casting iron as art and installed one of the countries first solid state induction melters in the studio at SIUE. He has performed more than 40 workshops at colleges and universities, has been a presenter in over 30 panels at conferences, and has given dozens of lectures locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally. His work is included in numerous private and public collections. Gipe is a professor emeritus making art in his home studio.

David Gooding is a sculptor based in the Forest of Dean, UK. He works in cast iron, bronze and other materials at his own foundry / studio, and makes installations for site-specific exhibitions. He has undertaken residencies and exhibited in UK, Ireland, Netherlands, Germany, New Zealand and USA. He is co-founder of FARMprojects, an artist-led environmental arts organisation.

Andy Griffiths, was born in 1956 and before studying sculpture at Central School of Art and Design in London spent five years as the lead singer of a punk band touring Britain and recording. After leaving Central in 1987 he set up his own studio in London producing and exhibiting his own work. During this time he worked at AB Fine Art Foundry as a bronze caster as well as teaching at the Slade School of Art during the summer. After a short spell working in Spain in 1992 he moved to West Wales and is now Head of Sculpture at the West Wales School of the Arts, in 1993 he attended US/UK No7 at Berllanderi Sculpture Workshops and is currently building a cupola with his students to bring to Ironbridge.

Jack Gron, born Steubenville, Ohio, USA - 1951. BFA degree,Columbus College of Art and Design Columbus, Ohio 1973. Masters of Fine Arts degree, Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri 1976. Jack operated a sculpture studio in Chicago from 1976 to 1980. 1980 to 1982 Jack taught sculpture at the University of Cincinnati. From 1982 to 2002, Jack headed the sculpture program at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. 1995 to 2002, he served as Chairman of Kentucky's Art Department. In June 2002, Jack accepted the position of Director of the School of Art at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona. Three years later, Jack accepted the position of Chairman of the Art Department at Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi, Texas. Jack serves on the Board of Directors of the Mid-America College Art Association and was recently appointed trustee to the Art Museum of South Texas.

John Hachmeister is an artist, art activist, and associate professor of sculpture at the University of Kansas. He began casting iron in 1974. In the last decade he has incorporated thermite reactions with other casting processes to create performative sculpture. He maintains studios on the edge of 160 acres of tall grass prairie he has been recreating for the past 25 years. In addition to studio art and teaching, he is co-curator of a grassroots art environment, The Garden of Eden in Lucas, Kansas and also serves on the boards of the Arts Incubator of Kansas City and the Fred Smith Wisconsin Sculpture Park.

Nor Hall is an archetypal psychologist, writer, and theater artist from Minnesota. Her graduate degree in the History of Consciousness from the University of California at Santa Cruz (after Beloit College, class of '69) prepared her for the study of iron from a mytho-poetic perspective. Her books are The Moon and the Virgin, Broodmales, Dreaming in Red and Irons in the Fire which includes the epic " End of the Iron Age"-- a praise piece to molten metal. Currently she is working on a play about She Pirates that opens in Minneapolis this June.

Cynthia Handel is a sculptor / professor who has her studio in Oakland, California, USA. She has been teaching cast metal for the last twelve years. Cynthia was Assistant Professor at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, LA, for three years, where she developed a full casting program including shell, sand and casting iron. She has taught at Sonoma State University, San Jose State University and other Colleges in the San Francisco bay area. Cynthia just returned from an Artist in Residency at JENTEL in Wyoming, USA. Her work combines cast elements and a wide range of mixed materials iron, bronze, silk and steel.

Paul Higham. Born UK 1953. Lives New York. Since studying at Goldsmiths College of Art in the early 70's, Higham has used digital technology such as holography, haptics, 3d scanning, coding, vr worlds, rapid prototyping and cnc milling in his art. His endeavor is to propagate a new form of sculpture based on self organizing theories of artificial life. His residencies include University of London '86, Stratasys Rapid Prototype Corp, USA '95, University of Minnesota, Advanced Visualization Lab, School of the Art Institute of Chicago and currently New York Institute of Technology. He shows internationally including the '96 New York Digital Salon, Circulo de Bellas Artes, Madrid, Intersculpt '99, French Senate, Paris, I.S.C Chicago, Pittsburg & Houston, Walker Art Center, Pirkkala Sculpture Park, Finland and The Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans. Higham has been awarded the Jerome Mcknight for his V.R work and remains a pioneer of computers in sculpture, developing 'Data Sculpture' in 1990 which uses information theory, heuristics and data mining.

Jonathan Hils has been an Assistant Professor at the University of Oklahoma since 2002. He received his BFA from Georgia State University (1997) and his MFA from Tulane University (1999). He has instructed at the College of Charleston, SC and Sloss Metal Arts Program in Birmingham, AL. Hils is the recent recipient of the 2005 Oklahoma Visual Art Fellowship and completed a Kohler Arts/Industry residency in the summer of 2005. He has shown extensively across the U.S and is currently represented by Bobbi Walker Fine Art in Denver, CO.

Laura Hilton is the Heritage Education Officer for Parc Tondu Victorian Ironworks in Maesteg, South Wales. She recently established the site as a venue for iron casting with the assistance of Coral Lambert and Harvery Hood.

Harvey Hood, born 1946 Staffordshire, England, studied at Birmingham College of Art and the Royal College of Art, London.Head of Sculpture at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff until 2000.Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of British Sculptors.Runs Berllanderi Sculpture Workshop in Raglan, Wales, a residential retreat for sculptors from Britain and abroad.Has run Cast-Iron Workshops at Berllanderi for 12 years. Now concentrates of his own work and lectures in Europe, North America and India.

Daniel Hunt was born 1962 in Peoria, IL. He received his B.F.A. in 1983 and A.M. in 1986 from the University of Illinios at Urbanea - Champaign. In 1989, he completed his M.F.A. at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. hunt has participated in numerous iron pours and symposiums, conducted several foundry workshops in the U.S. and the U.K. In 2005 he was the Co-Chair for the Southern Conference on Cast Iron Art at Sloss Historic furnaces. Hunts meticulously crafted and satirical work has been exhibtied throughout the states. Currently he holds the position of associate professor and area of sculpture at Kansas State University.

Ginny Hutchinson, Scotland. Studied her MFA at the Royal College of Art and has worked with the Scottish Sculpture Workshop, Lumsden.

Weimin Fan Born in 1954. Senior handicraft master, graduated from Tsinghua University Arts and Design Academy. Now the President of The Chinese Sculpture Magazine, Editor in chief of Chinese Sculpture yearbook, Executive member of Chinese Handicrafts and Arts Council, Assistant Director of Chinese Professional Sculptural Committee, Consultant of Chinese Artistic Foundry Committee, Consultant of JiangSu YiXing Pottery Arts Committee, Serve on the BeiJing Urban Sculpture and Environmental Arts Committee, Guest Reporter of world’s woodcarving magazine in the USA, Director of JingWei Culture and Arts Center, Art Director of Chinese Sculpture platform website, Guest Professor of BeiJing Institute of Clothing Technology and HeBei University Fine Arts Academy.

Villu Jaanisoo Sculptor. Born 1963. In Tallinn Estonia. Graduated from the sculpture department of the Estonian State Art University in 1989.
Director of the Pirkkala Sculpture Symposium, Finland.

Meredith Jack has been active with the previous four International Conferences on Contemporary Cast Iron Art, co-chairing the 4th Conference at Johnson Atilier in 2002. He is Professor of Sculpture at Lamar University in Beaumont, TX where he has been involved with casting iron for over 25 years. He co-chaired Houston Sculpture 2000, the organization that brought the International Sculpture Symposium to Houston in conjunction with the International Sculpture Center. His work is in private, academic, and museum collections throughout the US, and he maintains his home and studio in Houston, TX. Gallerie Luca in Zaltbommel, Netherlands represents him in Europe.

Dilys Jackson, ARBS. Her work derives from her interest in land forms, rocks and earth processes and their kinaesthetic relationship to the human body. She uses a variety of materials such as bronze, steel, wood, stone, iron and paper to arrive at an expression of her perception of the environments around her. Besides her smaller sculpture and drawings, she creates large installations about or within the landscape. Jackson lives in Cardiff and works at the Butetown Artists Studios. She has travelled and worked in Europe, Australia, America and the Middle East and has exhibited in Europe, America and Russia. She has undertaken various commissions and residencies such as the Sight Garden, Stackpole, Dyfed, the Copper Mill Millennium Sculpture in Greenfield Valley, Flint, a Leighton Studios Fellowship at Banff, Canada and a US/UK Cast Iron Residency at Berllanderi Sculpture Workshops, Wales.

Hanna Jubran received his M.F.A. in Sculpture from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and is Sculpture Professor at East Carolina University in Greenville, USA. One of the many decisions he makes in his work is to maintain and preserve the natural quality of materials such as wood, granite, steel, stainless steel, iron and bronze. One of his most recent commissions is 'A Monument to a Century of Flight", Kitty Hawk, NC. Jubran has participated in many International Symposiums including Pirkkala, Finland, Chaco, Argentina, 'Rim of Fire" at Pedvale Sculpture Park, Sabile, Latvia, Wood Carving at St. Blasien, Germany, Tultepec, Mexico, Israel, Cayo Largo, Cuba, Granby, Canada, Kemijarvi, The Europas Parkas in Vilnius, Lithuania and The Toyamura International Sculpture Biennial at Toyamura Japan-where he received semi-grand prize.

Alexander Ketele was born in Belgium in 1954 and received MFA from St Lukas Institute Brussels. He teaches sculpture at Academy of Fine Arts Anderlecht/Brussels and started working with cast iron after participation ICCCIA 1988 in Birmingham, Alabama, USA. Is researching the expressive power of cast iron by combining it with the fragile depth of cast glass. Ketele has been showing work in the Netherlands, France, Germany, America, Japan and has worked out several monumental projects for the Belgian Government and major Belgian companies.

Adam Labe..,has been the Foundry Technician for the John Michael Kohler Arts Center's (Sheboygan, WI) renowned Arts/Industry residency program at Kohler Co. since 2002. He earned his B.F.A. in ceramics from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and his M.F.A. in sculpture from New Mexico State University. Adam's skill and knowledge in both traditional and experimental foundry processes comes from many years of dedicated, hands-on work in the field: as facilities manager and sculpture technician at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and The State University of New York at Stony Brook, as a fitter and welder at Johnson Atelier, and artist-in-residence at Anderson Ranch Arts Center. A special trip to Juarez, Mexico, early in Adam's career provided him with the access and exposure to floor foundry facilities needed to cast his own work, an experience that would later serve as a foundation on which to build in the factory at Kohler Co.

Deborah La Grasse teaches Design at the School of Architecture at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, Florida. She has also taught Sculpture at Eastern Illinois and Florida State University. She received her MFA from Southern Illinois University, and was an Apprentice at the Johnson Atelier Institute of Sculpture in New Jersey. Deborah has participated in conferences and has conducted workshops nationally and internationally. In 1994, Deborah and her husband Charles, taught an Iron Casting Workshop in Sarajevo, Bosnia. She has been working with Cast Iron for 25 years.

Coral Lambert, British Sculptor, born 1966, studied at Central School of Art, London, Canterbury College of Art, Kent and received her MFA in Sculpture from Manchester Met University in 1990. From 1995-98 she was International Artist/Research Fellow in Cast Metals at the University of Minnesota. She shows her works extensively in England and America including The Barbican Art Center, London, Convergence, Rhode Island, Grounds For Sculpture, NJ and Chicago's Pier Walk. Lambert has participated in many international conferences including the Pirkkala Sculpture Symposium in Finland, also visiting artist at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Royal College of Art, University of North Carolina, Louisiana State University and NYIT, New York. Lambert is the founder of US/UK Cast Iron Sculpture Symposium which has taken place since 1997. She is a recent recipient of Franconia Sculpture Park's Jerome Fellowship and the Gottlieb Foundation Award. Currently living in New York.

Christian Lavigne, expresses his art with many different materials and techniques: research in the fields of transparency and fluorescence, electronic animation, computer and Internet technologies, use of high-tech machines (laser cutting, water jet cutting, 3D NC machining, Rapid-Prototyping). He created the words "ROBOSCULPTURE, TELESCULPTURE, and CYBERSCULPTURE" for actual or virtual computer sculptures. He is well known as a pioneer of these new disciplines. In 1992, Christian Lavigne founded with Alexandre Vitkine the international artistic group "Ars Mathematica", for promotion of new technologies in sculpture, and realized "The First World Wide Exhibition of Numerical Sculpture" (Paris, 1993). This event becomes a network of simultaneous and interactive exhibition: INTERSCULPT, and is organized each 2 years in partnership with the Computer and Sculpture Forum (USA) since 95, FasT-UK (GB) since 97, DAAP Zone (UP in Cincinnati, USA) since 97, Prism lab in AZU (USA) since 99, U. of HongKong since 99, U. of Wanganui ( NZ) since 2001, and IIT of Kanpur, India.

Marjee-Anne Levine received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2000, and her MFA in sculpture from Georgia State University in 2004. Since attending the Third ICCCIA in 1998, she has been actively melting, making, showing, speaking, and writing about iron. With a constant focus on participating in and expanding the iron casting community, she has lectured and run iron pours/performances at various international institutions and conferences.

Nick Lloyd, has taught sculpture full time at the University of Wolverhampton since 1992, relinquishing his post earlier this year. He has worked in stone, cast iron and wood, making publicly sited and gallery based works. He is currently developing a new studio on Orkney mainland in order to develop a landscape based PhD sculpture project. Lloyd is interested in the way that sculpture can make both spatial and temporal reference to current and past experiences of landscape.

David Lobdell was born 1958 in Lafayette, Louisiana. He received his undergraduate degree in sculpture in 1979 from the University of Southwestern Louisiana and his M.F.A. in 1982 from the University of Notre Dame. He worked for a decade in foundries, potteries and as a commissioned artist before taking a full time teaching position. He has taught at New Mexico Highlands University since 1991 and currently serves as fine arts coordinator in the Department of Communications and Fine Arts. NMHU holds the Iron Tribe Exhibit biannually since 2001. He is interested in the relationship between ceramics, casting and ritual.

Gerry Masse was born in Massachusetts and raised in Indiana he received his MFA in sculpture from the University of Kentucky in 2001 where he currently teaches sculpture. He has been a member of the Ironbridge Open Air Museum of Steel Sculpture’s Furnace Crew for the past five years. Gerry is also founder of Sculpture Trails Outdoor Museum located in his hometown of Solsberry, IN.

Greg Mueller received his MFA in sculpture from the Montana State University School of Art, where he collaborated with artist Hopi Breton in hosting community cast iron workshops. He has also participated in Minnesota’s Herman Iron Pours, the 2003 7^th US/UK Cast Iron Residency, Wales, UK and the 2005 Keen Foundry Cast Iron Symposium in Houston, TX. Currently, Mueller is teaching metal casting and hosting collaborative iron pours at the Bowling Green State University School of Art in Ohio.

Mary Bates Neubauer is a professor at Arizona State University, where she runs the foundry program and is affiliated with the Partnership for Research in Spatial Modeling. Mary has received a Ford Fellowship, as well as a Fulbright Fellowship (Cambridge, England). She has served in residence at many institutions, including the Scottish Sculpture Workshop, Anderson Ranch, and the Kohler Arts/Industry program. Mary co-directed the 4th International Conference on Cast Iron Art. She exhibits her sculpture and digital prints nationally and internationally and has completed several public commissions in the western states.

Carolyn Ottmers currently teaches sculpture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is represented by Carrie Secrist gallery. She has curated and organized numerous cast iron exhibitions and events, including Women, Fire, and Iron: A National Conference on Women in the Foundry Arts, held at the University of Minnesota in 1993 as well as actively participating in all the ICCCIA conferences. A series of Arts/Industry residencies sponsored by the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, WI, has had a major impact on the development of her practice. Exhibited internationally, her sculptures are often a hybrid of forms, processes, and materials inspired by the urban and natural landscape. The recurrent use of multiples reflects a combined interest in the variation and diversity of nature as well as the industrial production of objects.

Kenneth Patrick Payne, Sculptor was born in 1950 in Milwaukee Wisconsin. After attending such diverse schools as New York University and AT&T State College in North Carolina, he received his MFA from the University of Wisconsin. Mr. Payne currently lives in Buffalo, NY. Where he heads the Sculpture program at Buffalo State College. He has completed large scale sculpture projects in several countries including Hungary, Israel, Finland, Latvia, Estonia and the United States. His mixed media work ranges from the intimate to the monumental. He often works on site combining local materials with cast metal or glass elements. These on site projects reflect the areas and cultures where they are created. He employs the social content inherent in the various media to create metaphors with emotional poignancy. He has shown widely and is included in many public and private collections.

Wayne Potratz BS Art and Education Macalester College 1964. MA University of California, Berkeley 1966. Professor University of Minnesota since 1969. Potratz has an extensive record of international, national, and regional exhibitions, lectures, workshops, and conferences dating from 1964. Founder [along with Prof Thomas Gipe] of the International Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron Art.

M. C. Reiley of New York is dually occupied as an independent artist and as Supervisor of Monuments Conservation for the Central Park Conservancy. Currently overseeing the Bethesda Terrace Minton Tiles (produced in1869 in nearby Stoke-on-Trent) arcade ceiling restoration, Reiley spends weekends at his workshop in Trenton, New Jersey. Each year, he and colleagues gather to stoke The AbOmInOg, a unique and capacious mobile cupolette furnace, and to cast their artwork. As a former apprentice and staff member of the Johnson Atelier Technical Institute of Sculpture (1996-2000) he was first exposed to cast iron as a creative medium. The Ironbridge ICCCIA is the third consecutive attended by the artist. Reiley’s cast metal sculptures are in several private collections in the US and are exhibited in the permanent collections the University of Connecticut Dodd Center and the Noyes Museum, Oceanville, NJ.

Tamsie Ringler received her early sculptural training from George Cramer at the University of Wisconsin and her MFA from the University of Texas at Austin. Growing up on the rolling prairies of the Midwestern United States, she has strong spatial and visual ties to the landscape in which she lives and to the forms of interaction between people and their environment. Her installations and sculptures, both public and intimate, invite viewers to participate and re-examine their relationships with one another and their surroundings. Currently she lives in the Pacific Northwest with one eye to the sky and the other on her one-year old son, and iron is in her blood!

Robert Michael Smith is a digital sculptor and Associate Professor of art and technology at New York Institute of Technology Fine Arts Dept. Smith is also NYIT Middle East Fine Arts Computer Graphics Coordinator for Global Exchange Programs at Amman, Jordan; Kingdom of Bahrain, and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Smith has been an active pioneer of digital sculpture, 3D visualization/animation, Web design, virtual sculptures for the Web, virtual actors for computer gaming, as well as a significant art and technology educator. During 1999-2003 Smith was a Board Director for Manhattan chapter of SIGGRAPH. Smith was the founding Web Director of www.sculpture.org during 1997-2003 and Board Director of the International Sculpture Center during 2003 -2005. Smith is President Emiritus of the Sculptors Guild, founding Board Director and Treasurer of Digital Stone Project, as well as a member of the Washington Sculptors Group, Philadelphia Sculptors, and Art & Science Collaborations, Inc. (ASCI). Smith previously taught at Pratt Institute, School of Visual Arts, The New School for Social Research, Parsons School of Art & Design, University of the Arts at Philadelphia, The Sculpture Center NYC, University of North Dakota, University of Hawaii at Manoa, and San Jose State University. Smith's sculptures and digital art have been exhibited extensively worldwide, featured in lectures at numerous universities, international conferences, and included in several international articles.

Durant Thompson, is originally from Connecticut, but grew up mostly in Knoxville, Tennessee. In 1997, he received a BFA in Studio Art from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and in 2001 he earned an MFA from Louisiana State University. A couple of years after graduate school, he moved to New Jersey and worked at The Johnson Atelier School of Technical Sculpture, the site of the 4^th International Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron Art. He then moved on to the University of Southern Mississippi for the two years where he oversaw the construction of the new 32” cupola that will be run at the end of April this year. Thompson is the new sculpture professor at the University of Mississippi where he will be starting a new iron program in the fall of 2006. He has been working with iron as a medium for ten years and incorporates much of the castings with other materials to create his work.

Mathew Tomalin's current practice is almost wholly concerned with cast iron, though he has a lifetime of teaching and working in many metals, at many different scales. He exhibits widely and has work in public and private collections. After a memorable iron initiation at Berllanderi Sculpture Workshops in 1995, Tomalin went on a two-month iron study tour of America in 1997, with a Travel Fellowship from the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust. He runs a 16" cupolette at his studio near Brecon, in Wales, and is currently building a small one-person furnace.

Matt Toole grew up in the marshes and barrier islands of Savannah, Georgia. He received an MFA from Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville in 2000 and has since participated in residencies at the Scottish Sculpture Workshop, John Michael Kohler Art’s Center, and Franconia Sculpture Park. Matt is currently an assistant professor of sculpture at the Betty Foy Sanders Department of Art at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Georgia.

Linda Walsh grew up on the Mesabi Iron Range in Northern Minnesota around open pit mines and taconite plants. Her undergraduate work was in ceramics at the University of Iowa. After receiving her MFA from Claremont Graduate School, she taught at the University of Southern California. In 1979 she began teaching at San Jose State University. During the early eighties her work began to move from ceramics to metal casting…largely due to the wonderful metal facility available at SJSU. In ’87-’88 she took a leave to study casting with Tom Walsh at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. Tom and Linda now both work at SJSU’s metal facility.

Johnny P. Williams born in 1957 York Alabama. Surrealist inspired sculptor, photographer and electrician long interested in collaborative art, cultural experiences and industrial history. In 1998 confounded, with Rick Batten, Alabama Art Casting a nonprofit art education program providing iron pours, mold workshops, casting program implementation and development and art foundry consulting in a diversity of national and international venues. Alabama Art Casting maintains facilities at Tannehill Ironworks Historic State Park near Birmingham and in Eutaw Alabama where he lives and enjoys cooking, camping and reading to school children.