Foundry Sand

Foundry sand, AKA green sand, or molding sand is awesome. It's a mix of fine sand, clay, and other materials that's used slightly wet. It is formulated to keep its shape better than ordinary sand and to have a smooth finish when made into a mold, to impart to the molten metal that's poured into it.

My first-grade class had a wooden bin of foundry sand. It was maybe a foot deep with 7 or 8 inches of sand in it. The bin was around 10 feet long and 3 to 4 feet wide. It had a lid that served to keep the sand from drying out overnight. The bin with the sand in it was very heavy, so it was supported by a sturdy table with thick short legs, that raised it to a convenient height for 1st-graders to work in it.

Of course it wasn't there for molten metal casting. It was a deluxe sand box. It was the best sand box I have ever played in.

We kids didn't know what was in the bin until halfway through the year when the school's roaming art teacher came in and told us we were going to do art with foundry sand. She removed the lid with help from the regular teacher and there was all that gorgeous fine malleable sand.

We kids were gathered around the bin shoulder to shoulder and shown how the sand could be molded. Seeing how well it held its shape I salivated. I had to wait for the art teacher to demonstrate how bloody artistic we could be with the stuff.

Finally she let us loose with instructions to do a joint project of constructing a sand city in the bin from end to end.

I was amazed that so many of the other kids had no idea what to do. Two-thirds just stood around waiting for someone to clarify the task, as if they didn't dare risk breaking the sand by making it in the wrong shape.

While the others watched, my area had a system of highways with under- and over-passes feeding neighborhoods with spiral cul-de-sacs. The kids next to me ceded their space so I could continue my urban vision.

While all this was going on the art teacher was at the other end of the room talking to the other teacher. By the time she got back all but four or five of the other kids in the class had given up their space to let me go wild. I'd done most of the city myself.

The art teacher looked at it with wide eyes and said it was great, but said I had to stop and let the others contribute. It was supposed to be a joint project. But the others didn't want to wreck what I had done. The art teacher couldn't hide her disappointment.

The experience left me conflicted. Usually I hated our art projects because there were too many instructions. I could follow the instructions but I didn't like the results. I didn't feel like I'd created anything. Finally we had an art project that was made for me, where there were practically no instructions. What I got to do was entirely my own idea. But I had to be reined in because I was keeping something from the others they didn't want.

I wasn't able to see the whole picture. The real lesson was lost on me because I was overwhelmed by the feeling of rejection. I did fine when the teacher was away. I had an audience even. It was many years before I could look back on it and realize that I had really found a place in art that day.