Some of Jay Andersons’ fondest memories from youth are accompanying his father on install trips, like the one to an Idaho forest in the early ’90s to install Ed Keinholz’s “Mine Camp,” which reproduced in bronze a 1950s hunting scene, complete with casts of a 40-foot-tall tree, a full-size pickup truck, a deer carcass, hunting accouterments, a campfire and Keinholz himself. Follet and Jay Anderson pondered if the best way to install it would be by helicopter, avoiding the headache of navigating narrow, winding mountain roads with such large cargo. Standing next to one of Isa Genzken’s 33-foot-tall orchid sculptures - which is slated to travel to Gstaad, Switzerland, in November - Mr. “They understand the artist and give artists room to explore.” Going the Distance “The foundry is not jaded by the art world or civilization, you know, the crowd of city living and well-worn paths of industry,” Ryle said. “I don’t think anybody can compete with the quality.” Butterfield has a studio space at the foundry and comes to work on-site several times a year, driving a truck full of sticks from her home in Montana for wax-cast burnouts. Butterfield and Mark soon became fast friends and their families grew close. Back then, the campus was one building and the small team focused mostly on life-size bronze casts for a handful of artists such as Mr. When the Andersons established the foundry in the ’80s, it was not with the express goal of building monumental art. “It’s supposed to able to accommodate a 50-foot sculpture inside,” he said. That will soon change, said Jay Anderson, with the groundbreaking for a new building, scheduled to open next summer, creating room for the foundry to create multiple large-scale projects at once, projects that can take anywhere from a few months to years.
Walla Walla Foundry is one of the largest contemporary fine-art foundries in the world, spanning a cluster of buildings that house facilities including a traditional bronze foundry, wax and silicone workshops, 3-D printers the size of bedrooms, and a 40-foot-long paint booth. “We’ve always been passive and let the work speak for itself,” said Lisa Anderson, a co-owner. Yet, if you’re not directly involved in the business of large-scale art, you’ve probably never heard of the place.
The work it has produced has been exhibited, collected, and installed around the world, from MoMA and Central Park to the Palace of Versailles and the Venice Biennale.
Dine has called it an “extension of the artist’s hand.”
The sculptor Deborah Butterfield likens the foundry to “a chocolate factory for artists where pretty much anything you can think of can be made.” Mr. While Walla Walla Valley has become known as a wine destination, many of the world’s leading contemporary artists know it as the home of this fine-art playground - one that has engendered relationships as intimate as they are professional.
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