Franconia Park iron pour gives new meaning to a 'hot date'

Two furnaces roar along at 2,700 degrees, melting old heating radiators to turn them into works of art while blasting away any nearby snow.

That's the scene on Valentine's Day at the Franconia Sculpture Park west of Taylor's Falls. It draws hundreds each year who can watch one of the more dramatic sights of creation in the world of art.

John Hock, the park's co-founder and artistic director, answered questions about the event, and about a park that is about to grow quite a bit.

Q: How did the Valentine's Day event come about?

A: This is its seventh year. It started as just a thing for artists to come and make original molds, then have hot iron poured in to create permanent sculptures. But it turned into a public event after just the first year.

Last year we drew around 500 people, so we expect probably 500 to 700 this year despite the fact we have no advertising bucks, a small budget, not much marketing. People even fairly close by here often haven't heard of us.

Q: What are people creating on Valentine's Day?

A: People do what they want, in making molds. Some put their names in. Some do designs. It's all different: it's not hearts and it's all unique. People come to workshops before the day itself, and scratch into molds what they want to scratch, and then of course the object that emerges is just the opposite of that. Most are the size of paperweights but the larger ones can be 12 inches by 12 inches and very heavy.

Q: What is the raw material for the furnace?

A: It's cast-iron radiators from older buildings: the big strong units that your grandmother used to heat a room. We buy them from a scrap yard or take donations. One institution alone gave us 20 tons of radiators; it took 30 trips to move. They come here all solid and big and artists break them into one-inch chunks and it gets melted in furnaces, first from propane heat and then coke — not the soda, the fuel.

A huge fan blower keeps it all roaring, feeds the fire. It's a glorified barbecue in some ways but with 20 times the energy. You're fanning the fire, the thing goes nuts, you have a whole crew on the furnace, six people, some charged with putting in the iron and the coke, and there's a pourmaster. Everyone's running around, there's a crucible on a stick with molten iron held by two people in full facemasks, hard hats, chaps, to protect themselves from metal flying through the air, and there can be quite a bit of that.

We actually do a much bigger event of this kind in August. This year 1,700 people came, there was live music, we poured into 300 molds — we went from 10 a.m. to 6 a.m. the next day! It was insane, out of control. It gets dangerous at 3 a.m. with people so tired, I'm not proud of that — but we pulled it off.

Q: If you're not creating hearts, what's the connection with Valentine's?

A: Oh, it's all "Hot, hot, hot! Bring your honey, meet someone new!"

And bring a Thermos of hot chocolate: last year we tried to make coffee and hot chocolate but it was too cold, it didn't work, it was a total misstep. We won't offer any this year, but do bring your own. Watch two furnaces blazing at 2,700 degrees, enjoy a big bonfire, warm your feet.

Q: How long has the park existed?

A: Eighteen years, eight at this location. We started with 20 acres here and have bought another 23 to our west, and are slowly working on a plan for the use of that land as well.

Q: How did it land here?

A: Through my college friendship with Fuller Cowles, son of John Cowles Jr. [the family for decades owned the Star Tribune]. His family had land here. I was working as a sculptor out east and had some extra money from an award; he had an extra house for me to use, and I came out here to spend three months. That was 20 years ago.

Q: How is it all financed?

A: At first just our own money, but then we got support from the McKnight and the Jerome foundations, small grants, and then it steamrollered from there: we have a $500,000 budget, about half of it or a little more from foundations, though it's now more than just the two. The Legacy Amendment helped a lot: it probably added $80,000 to our budget, enabling us to do a concert series, a rural arts program, buy golf carts for accessibility.

Q: When is the park open?

A: Every day all year. In winter there might be just three or four people all day, but right now there are six cars in the parking lot! We had 13,000 participants in educational programs last year, often school groups on tours who are charged a nominal fee; but 500 people participated in workshops.

We're rural and we get a lot of people who are not the standard museum-going crowd, attracted to culture and theater. We've grown really tight with St. Croix Falls [Wis.], where we have two or three sculptures at their amazing library alone, as well as other sites in town.

David Peterson • 651-925-5039