FOUNDRY SERIES

My time working in various metal foundries while creating cast works led to my latest series, Foundry, a body of wall sculptures shaped by the process of sand-mold making.

In sand casting, my woven forms are pressed into compacted sand and then removed, producing a defined impression through pressure. This impression becomes the mold. Once metal is poured, the sand mold—made for a single pour—is broken apart to release the cast. 

The Foundry series centers on the mold at the moment it remains intact, holding the imprint of the weaving.

The woven forms used in the Foundry series originate on the loom and, as in my metal casting works, remain in circulation across multiple impressions. The looseness of the weave allows the warp and weft to shift with each placement, producing recordings in sand that are related but never identical. In the Foundry series, these recordings are held in silk, whose subtle sheen registers light across the woven surface.

The series draws from the structure of the flask—the box used to contain and compress the sand—and more specifically the lower portion, known as the drag. In these wall sculptures, the drag is constructed entirely of solid white oak, establishing the framework for each work.

In the final form of the works, functional elements of the sand-casting flask are preserved without direct replication. Reinforcing corner blocks—originally metal—are translated into wood; the angled walls of the drag are retained; and the two holes on each side remain, marking where rods would normally register and secure the mold as the flask is turned. In the final forms, silk is visible through these holes, reading as a continuous mass.

The Foundry series borrows its structural language from sand casting and reflects the ephemeral nature of the process, with each wall sculpture preserving a moment not meant to remain.