Banner artwork: A Place to Land by Felicia Glidden,
cast iron, 8x9x9," 2005. This piece was cast at the New Orleans Sculpture Lab. (Photo: Sean Smuda) This image was cropped and reprinted for access+ENGAGE with the artist's permission)
About the artist: Felicia Glidden works primarily in cast metals. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Minnesota, Duluth in 1990. She grew up in the Twin Cities and has recently returned after living in the woods near Lake Superior for 20 years. A member of the Duluth artist-run non-profit Common Language, she organizes an annual iron pour in Poplar, Wisconsin, where she operates a furnace named Aurora. She enjoys working collaboratively with other sculptors and has traveled to metal-casting residencies in the region, across the country, and abroad—in Louisiana, Illinois, Indiana, New York, and Southern Wales in the UK. She will be facilitating an iron casting residency at Salem Art Works in upstate New York this August. Glidden studied modern dance for many years and works to translate some of that knowledge of form, space and time into her 
sculptures.
Her work is currently on view at Bockley Gallery's Potluck exhibition in Minneapolis and Iron Pour Showcase at Cornucopia Art Center in Lanesboro MN. Her outdoor cast iron sculptures are installed at Salem Art Works in Salem, NY and Franconia Sculpture Park in Franconia, MN. She is a participant in the upcoming Community/Collaboration Hot Metal Pour on August 2 at Franconia Sculpture Park, and you can also see her work in the upcoming exhibition Franconia, 12 Years of Casting Sculpture, on view from August 7th to Sept 30 at the Stillwater Public Library. Felicia ran a decorative/restoration painting company Minoan Painting from 1992 – 2007, and continues as a color consultant. She teaches bronze and aluminum casting with her sister Veronica Glidden through Kite Hill Art Foundry, and also works as an Education and Outreach Coordinator for Franconia Sculpture Park. You can see a large online portfolio of her work and keep track of all her current and upcoming events by visiting her website and her individual artist pages on mnartists.org.
About her work, Glidden writes: "My metal sculptures are mined from the visual language of dreams. Working with cast metal feeds my ritual-loving self through direct involvement with the elements of fire, earth, air, and metal. Process is integral in my art. I studied dance for twenty years, and pouring molten metal in collaboration with sculptors recalls this experience: sand molds set the stage as we communicate the requirements of each piece in our continual, intentional, improvisational movements. Molten metal is the primary dancer, in its contained energy, fluidity and grace. I use recycled wood and metal, and I am researching and raising money to utilize renewable energies in the process."
Credit: Photo (left) is Self Portrait at the Milwaukee Art Museum by Felicia Glidden; At right, Matris Fe IV,
cast iron 23x10x12," 2007 (Photo: Sean Smuda); this piece was cast at "standard issue iron pour" in Lanesboro, MN.