French Mountain Studios · Lake George, NY · Adirondack Park
The Crucible
SPARK · Mobile Metalcasting Education · Grades K–12
A professional foundry operation brought directly to your school, business, or community center. Students or participants design original artwork, carve it into a sand mold — instructors pour liquid aluminum into every mold on site. Every artist takes home a cast aluminum tile the same day.
One visit. Every student designs and carves an original mold. Instructors pour on site. Every student takes home a cast aluminum tile the same day. We bring everything.
Slide presentation — aluminum origins, art history of casting, the WVO furnace, and the design process. About 15 minutes.
2
Students mark their design onto a pre-rammed open-face sand mold, then carve it using hand tools.
3
Live aluminum pour — approximately 1,400°F. Instructors pour into every student's mold. Students observe from a maintained safety perimeter.
4
Sand knocked out. Students receive their finished cast aluminum tile and take it home the same day.
The furnace runs on waste vegetable oil — reclaimed cooking oil from the food system. Students see a renewable fuel system in operation alongside the metalcasting, connecting directly to combustion chemistry, materials science, and environmental stewardship.
Curriculum alignment
Built into the standards.
SPARK maps directly to NYS and national curriculum frameworks across visual arts, science, and engineering design — without any modification to the program.
The Creating standards cover generating and conceptualizing ideas, organizing and developing work, and refining and completing artistic work. Students move through the full arc — concept, execution, finished object — using professional-grade materials and processes.
Students observe a direct phase change from solid to liquid and back in real time, along with heat transfer, crystal structure formation, and how cooling rate affects material properties.
The mold carving process is a direct application of engineering design thinking — students define a problem, develop a solution within physical constraints, and see the results tested immediately by the pour.
The WVO fuel system connects directly to resource cycling, renewable energy, and carbon impact — waste cooking oil as an industrial fuel source, and what that means for the foundry's footprint relative to fossil fuels.
Sand casting has a 5,000-year lineage — from Benin bronzes and Greek sculpture through the Industrial Revolution to contemporary fine art practice. Students situate their own work in that history as part of the presentation, before they ever pick up a tool.
Space, timing, tech, and weather — everything you need to confirm before the program day. Click to expand.
Space needed
Indoor + outdoor
Classroom or art room for the presentation and carving. Adjacent outdoor or covered area — roughly 20×20 ft — for the pour and proper safety distances.
Arrival
~45 min early
Instructor and assistant arrive ahead of students to set up equipment. We work around your school's schedule.
Presentation
Google Drive access
We require access to our Google Drive via projector or smartboard for the slide presentation. Nothing to download or prepare in advance.
Weather
Rain or shine
Carving and mold work proceed regardless of weather. If conditions prevent the pour, we reschedule it at no additional charge.
Scheduling
Flexible
We work with your school's schedule and class structure. Reach out to discuss how the program fits your day.
Photography
As available
When we document the day, all images are cleared through you before any public use, following your school's media release process.
What it teaches
The process is the curriculum.
Metalcasting is transformative, permanent, and reliant on process — which makes it one of the most direct ways to teach real-world decision-making.
Commitment
Working reductively
You can only remove material from the mold — never add it back. Every cut is a decision students have to live with. That constraint turns out to be clarifying rather than limiting, and most students arrive at something stronger than they expected.
Consequence
Design under constraint
The choices students make in the mold show up directly in the casting. There's no autocorrect, no undo. The work reflects exactly what they did — which makes the feedback immediate, concrete, and theirs alone.
Intention
Making something permanent
Students who arrive thinking about what they want to make — and why — produce stronger work. The program invites them to design with a purpose: for a person, a value, an idea. That changes the quality of attention they bring.
Collective care
The shared pour
The pour is a shared event — every mold goes in together. The group's collective effort shapes the whole outcome. Students who understand that tend to work more carefully, and that care shows in the results.
About the practitioner
Jeremy Entwistle
MFA · Sculpture faculty, Union College · VP, ICCCIA · French Mountain Studios, Lake George NY
Jeremy Entwistle holds an MFA in Sculpture with a focus on metalcasting from West Virginia University and spent seven years as a foundry manager and visiting assistant professor at Fairmont State University. He currently teaches sculpture at Union College in Schenectady, NY, and is VP of the International Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron Art (ICCCIA). His five-year research program developing a prototype iron cupolette fueled entirely by waste vegetable oil has been presented at Auburn University, Skidmore College, Ramapo College of New Jersey, and the 2025 NCCCIAP conference in Birmingham, AL. French Mountain Studios is a working fine art foundry based in Lake George, NY — in the Adirondack Park.
Degree
MFA in Sculpture, metalcasting focus — West Virginia University
Teaching
Sculpture faculty, Union College · 7 years foundry manager & visiting assistant professor, Fairmont State University
Research
WVO cupolette — 5-year sustainable foundry fuel research program
Presented
NCCCIAP Birmingham AL 2025 · Auburn · Skidmore · Ramapo College NJ
Position
VP, International Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron Art (ICCCIA)
Studio
French Mountain Studios · Lake George, NY · Adirondack Park
Common questions
Quick answers.
The things administrators and teachers ask most often before submitting an inquiry.
Yes — New York State school districts can book SPARK through BOCES Arts in Education (CoSer 411) or Exploratory Enrichment (CoSer 418), which generates state aid reimbursement on program costs. Contact your district's BOCES coordinator, or reach out to us and we'll help you navigate the process. Full details on the funding guide page.
Outdoor space is required for the pour — this part of the program can't move indoors. We need a footprint of roughly 20×20 ft with at least 20 feet of clearance from any building, plus access to electricity and water nearby. A schoolyard, athletic field edge, or paved area outside a gymnasium all work well. If you're unsure whether your site qualifies, send us a description and we'll let you know quickly.
The presentation and mold carving happen indoors regardless of weather. If rain prevents the outdoor pour, we reschedule just the pour portion at no additional charge. We've built this into the program from the start — it's not a last-minute fix.
Yes. Students observe the pour from a maintained safety perimeter — they are never near the molten metal. All hands-on work (design, carving) is done with standard hand tools at a workstation. The program has been adapted and run successfully at every grade level, including early elementary. We hold full general liability insurance and carry a Certificate of Insurance and a site-specific Fire Safety Plan available for district review.
The base program fee is $2,750 for up to 50 students, with all materials, artist fees, insurance, and transport included. Additional students beyond 50 are $55 each, up to a maximum of 60. Public school districts book via Letter of Agreement with no deposit required — your date is held on signature. See the funding guide for options that may cover part or all of the program cost.
Very little. We handle all equipment, materials, safety setup, and the full instructional presentation on the day. Before we arrive, we'll email prep materials to the teacher and faculty so students come in knowing what to expect — the design process, what sand casting is, and how to think about their tile before they pick up a tool. On your end, you'll just need to arrange a classroom or art room, access to a projector or smartboard for Google Drive, and the outdoor space for the pour.
Bring a live metal pour to your campus.
Start with a conversation. We'll talk through your school's schedule, space, and what the program looks like for your students.
