Playing in the Sand with Brighton McCormick
Brighton kneels on the ground as she pours molten aluminum from a small crucible into an ingot mold.
Despite making a living as an artist specializing in foundry–-the practice of melting metal and shaping it with molds—Brighton makes an effort to not take her art too seriously.
“I make fun of art constantly,” they say, laughing. “It is like my whole world, but it’s also like, it’s art. If it’s not fun, why are you doing it?”
That’s the perspective she tries to share with students in her introductory class at CAFAC, Creative Metal Casting: Mold-Making Fundamentals.
“Casting is a great way to experiment, because you have to do something that is a little bit out of your control,” Brighton says. “I want students to just mess around. Some of those miscastings, those things that don’t turn out exactly how you wanted, end up being some of the best pieces.”
That attitude comes in part from their indirect path towards becoming a working artist. At 25, Brighton found themself working in finance in New York City, living comfortably but unfulfilled. Looking for an escape brought her to New York’s arts scene. A few short years later–after a stint as an oil painter, a reluctant introduction to sculpture, and a second degree–she’s become a integral part of the metal casting community in the Upper Midwest.
“As soon as I got in the foundry, I just kept taking [metal casting classes] over and over again,” Brighton says. “I was like ‘Holy crap, this is so hard, this is so much work—and nothing's ever been worth it like this before.’”
A row of open-face molds on the left and two-part molds on the right sit on the ground in CAFAC’s shop, ready for metal to be poured. A lit furnace fueled with propane is visible in the back.
At CAFAC, Brighton teaches Sand Mold Fundamentals throughout the year, an introductory class to mold-making using – you guessed it – sand. Sand is one of the oldest mold materials used in metal casting, and Brighton’s favorite first technique for students.
“It's a really great introduction to mold making, and mold making is foundational for casting anything, whether it’s jello, chocolate, bronze, aluminum, or cast iron,” she explains. “It also gets people looking at the world differently. You can identify if something you see on the street is a cast object or not,” including all kinds of plastic and rubber objects, which are often manufactured with molds.
Brighton’s class focuses on two main projects. In the first, students work “in the positive,” creating a one-to-one representation of an object that they want to cast out of metal..
“They sculpt something fresh out of their mind,” says Brighton, “so they're creating a positive pattern, they’re molding what will become a negative void in the mold.” Students learn how to make shapes that can be removed from a mold easily, meaning they don’t have overhanging edges or sharp angles.
For their second project, students mold a found object—a bowl, normally—and then carve directly into the mold to add detail.
“So they go from working in the positive by creating the initial bowl mold, to working in the negative and free form carving into a mold,” they say. “They're doing reductive carving.” All of the material they remove from the mold becomes space for molten metal to flow into.
On top of the foundational skills it teaches students, Brighton chose sand casting for its ease of entry. Students who want to create sand molds at home need less equipment, and can buy raw materials at lower cost than some other mold-making methods, like ceramic shell. Plus–there’s a sustainability element to sand molds.
“I create these little discs–I call them button molds,” she says. “Essentially it's sand waste that I turn into a small mold, which students can carve into. I like to find ways to utilize that waste material.”
A range of bowls cast by students in Brighton’s Sand Mold Fundamentals course. The raised patterns were created by carving away at sand. Sand molds give the final products a unique texture.
When they first started teaching foundry classes, Brighton assumed that their students were fascinated by fire and eager to get up close and personal with molten metal–in the “splash zone,” as they put it.
“I had this realization that not everybody likes to be around fire,” she says. “Like you don't want everything to be chaotic and crazy and hot–that's a deterrent to some people.”
“One approach I’ve definitely changed in the past year of teaching is to spend extra time on teaching body movements and muscle movements that you need. You know, ‘Here’s how to bend your knees and lock your elbows, and here’s the equipment that we’re using. This is going to feel hot and be a little heavy.’”
Getting students prepared also means teaching breathing techniques and how to take care of their bodies in what can be a stressful environment.
“If you’re in an environment where you’re having a startle response multiple times, you’re going to get frustrated quicker. You’re going to be exhausted,” she explains. “So part of the training is encouraging students to pay attention to their bodies. If you’re noticing yourself jumping from loud sounds multiple times, you need to remove yourself from the noise, take a couple of deep breaths, and then recenter yourself.”
Although the metal pour itself is central to the foundry process, it’s a small portion of the overall time you spend in the shop.
“I want people to know that you don’t have to jump in there and get right up close with molten metal. There’s a lot of steps along the way,” says Brighton. “The mold-making process is 60% of it. And then 5% of it is casting, and the rest is finishing.”
As the majority of the work students do in her class, mold-making itself is what she really wants to emphasize for their students.
“With casting, there’s just so much that’s out of your control that you really need to enjoy the mold-making process,” they say. “Casting especially is a kind of art form where you can’t be too focused on the end product.”
Students in Brighton’s course break open their sand molds post-pour, revealing the cast metal pieces inside.