Pandemic allows Iron Pour to add new twists

The year off that Mesalands Community College's Iron Pour took in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic gave the organizers a chance to rejigger the annual fine-arts festival this year.

The Iron Pour now has dedicated two days, instead of one, to pour molten metal into molds. Thursday's pouring around 7:30 p.m. will be used to fill smaller sand molds created by residents or amateur artists and will provide a different atmosphere.

The second, more traditional pouring at 12:30 p.m. Friday will be for the professional artists and their larger-size works, including one who has flown in from England. That will include usual ceremony of a balloon release and placing of sacrificial marshmallow Peeps along the furnace.

The studio at Building D, along South 11th Street in Tucumcari, will be open to the public from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily through Friday this week.

The art-show reception will be from 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday in the east wing of the Tucumcari Railroad Museum depot.

Joel Kiser, a member of the college's fine-arts faculty and one of the key organizers of the Iron Pour, said about 45 participants are expected, an increase from the two dozen or so in recent years. Those who register and participate all week long earn three credit hours and experience.

"We had been getting lower going into the COVID years," he said. "I think that was because a lot our participants are growing up and getting families. They have other responsibilities."

When the pandemic shut down the festival in 2021, Kiser said he and others used the downtime to reassess the event.

"COVID, it was a nightmare and a blessing at the same time," he said. "We've been more student-focused. We've reached out during COVID to alumni and our students to see what their needs are, what their interests are. We've formulated a workshop that's learning-based and research-based at the same time."

Kiser said the scaled-down pouring of molten metal on Thursday will give inexperienced artists a chance to be taught safety and other roles in such endeavors. That also is the day residents are welcome to walk in, create a tile or relief in sand blocks and have molten metal poured into them that night. The blocks are $20 each.

Because the Thursday pour will commence around dusk, that gives spectators a new way to experience it.

"The community will get to see this happen at night and you can more easily see it. The visual spectacle of it, it's atmospheric and an aspect of a pyrotechnic show," Kiser said.

The reason the Iron Pour draws artists from all over the country and world is Mesalands has access to facilities and equipment at a larger and more economical scale. Even the sand the college uses for sculptures fascinates researchers.

"They can't get (the sand) anywhere in the country," Kiser explained. "If they try to get it, it's going to cost them an arm and a leg."

Kiser also said support from the community also is a key reason artists keep coming back to the Iron Pour.

"The one thing they remember more than anything is Tucumcari," he said. "It's always been that way, even 14 years ago when I was a student. Tucumcari as a community, when you ask for help or support, you get it. With Iron Pour, people come out of the woodwork and donate food, water, help, iron ... you name it. That doesn't happen anywhere else."

More information may be found at mesalands.edu/ironpour. Those who wish to make donations should email [email protected] to make arrangements.