Iron Pour returns to MCC after year hiatus

After a one-year hiatus, the Iron Pour returns next week to Mesalands Community College.

The annual event involving art and coordination among artisans involving molten metal took a year off in 2023 during Mesalands' turmoil with its finances and leadership.

Now that both have stabilized, Nate Glaspie and Bill Raney, both members of the college's art faculty, have taken on the reins of reviving and improving the event, which begins Sunday and runs through May 25.

This will be the 24th edition of the Iron Pour, which will take place at Building D along South 11th Street in Tucumcari.

Glaspie said during the hiatus, they reconfigured the furnaces to run more smoothly and safely. The sand mixer used for cast-iron molds also was upgraded.

"We've just been reconfiguring a whole lot here," he said.

Mesalands also is due receive about $130,000 in federal funding to upgrade the foundries with renewable heating technology in future years.

"When we get the funding, we hope to do fine metal casting with silver, gold and various other precious metals," Glaspie said.

Raney said the event this year has full enrollment, with at least 20 art students have signed up who never have done metal casting before.

"The spirit of this is it's going to be a teaching environment, a learning environment, a supportive environment," Raney said.

The big event is the actual iron pour at about 1 p.m. May 24. The annual sage ceremony and blessing of the furnaces will begin at noon that day. Both are public events, with limits.

"We'll have it taped off so we can police some of that foot traffic better," Raney said, "and they'll have they'll have an obvious path of where to go and not go.

"Once you get going, you're talking about that metal, it's at least 2,500 degrees. The blast zone on the inside gets close to 3,000 where it's actually melting. So that's pretty serious."

The Iron Pour again will offer sand blocks that the public can carve for $20 apiece starting at 10 a.m. May 22. Those blocks will be filled with the molten metal on Friday.

The Iron Pour also will host its annual art show at 7 p.m. May 22 at the college. It earlier had planned to host the show at the Tucumcari Railroad Museum, but it is undergoing renovations.

This is Raney's first year in co-organizing the Iron Pour, and he said he already likes what he sees.

"This is a community college. It's smaller, but everyone here, they step up and they support each other," he said. "I know it's early in my tenure, but everyone has been very supportive. Everybody knows about the Iron Pour, and it's really neat."