By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
Woody Stauffer's "Dredge the Foundry: For Dirt and Era" exhibit covers a wide range in concrete, metals and plastics that from the pieces meant to evoke eons of decay to whimsical "animal crackers" cast in aluminum.
Stauffer's Master of Fine Arts exhibit will wrap up Friday in the new Moss-Thorns Gallery of Art in the art building on the Fort Hays State University campus.
Stauffer, 28, of Minneapolis, Minn., is concluding three years of study at FHSU with an emphasis in cast metal and concrete, although he also incorporates found and natural objects as well as plastics in this show.
The centerpiece of Stauffer's show is called the "Winged Snake Foundry Garden." He has incorporated his own small scale furnace into this piece. He wrapped a portion of the crane for the crucible in concrete and encased a cast iron dragon in the concrete.
He said the sculpture is his homage to metal casting.
Yet, he also said the dragon in the piece is representative of a demon. He said he loves his art, yet he knows he doesn't make a lot of money creating it.
"A lot of my work is about unearthing the past of the planet, which is buried beneath the ground. You have to unearth things to discover the past of planet earth," he said. "[I am] trying to understand how the earth functions and the metal that comes from the earth."
Many of his pieces contain dinosaurs or prehistoric-looking creatures, which he said is a homage to the earth's past.
"It is hard to fathom time scale and the time of the planet," he said. "Us humans are only here for 100 years. When I make sculpture, I try to channel certain natural things that the earth does."
The furnace on display in Stauffer's current exhibit will be headed to the Colby Art Walk this spring to be used to cast scratch blocks for community members. A scratch block is a carving in sand that is used as the mold for a metal pour.
Another sculpture in Stauffer's exhibit incorporates a rusted tailpipe in concrete.
"I was walking down the street and I found it on the side of the road," he said. "That is the thing with sculpture — sometimes you find something, and I want to incorporate that into a sculpture. I brought it to Kansas and I spent two years just having it my garage space.
"That is the fun thing about sculpture is finally finding a home for materials."
For the sculpture "Asteroid," Stauffer used plastic wrap for the first time as a mold for concrete. He also cast iron "rocks," that sit at the base of the sculpture.
He has also used chill molds to create more futuristic, almost alien- or robotic-looking creatures, which he says are meant to look futuristic.
Stauffer has also been experimenting with 3-D printing at FHSU. He has used the 3-D printing to create molds that are used to cast pieces in metal. He created an aluminum brush and dustpan through this process.
Working in concrete, he creates a lot of dust, but he also said the sculpture was symbolic of our need to take better care of our planet.
"It might be a nihilistic approach," he said. "What we are doing to the planet may kill us all in the end, but plastic will still be here. It is what I have been pondering. What is going to remain here from us?"
"I like to add some sorts of humor into my work too," he said standing over his "Nature is Metal, Life is Dumb." "... just like life on the planet and all its diverse forms and how weird it is to be a living thing."
Stauffer said his favorite aspect of his work is the casting process.
"I love the casting process where you get the furnace going and you can feel the heat and the slow melt of the metal," he said. "There is a lot of process involved."
Stauffer said casting metal is not a "solo adventure."
"It is like a sporting event. You have your team. You have to coordinate with one another," he said. "It is like an athletic event too. There is a lot of lifting and moving and preparing things."
When he works with concrete, that is usually an individual process.
Stauffer has been experimenting using the geometric forms in styrofoam packing as molds for concrete. One of his concrete pieces was cast from a drink carrier, but it it yielded a very earthy, decayed-looking piece.
Learn more about Stauffer's sculpture at https://www.wssgdesigns.com/