The pour was conducted with visiting Czech artist Olinka Broadfoot. Broadfoot was visiting as part of Maricopa Community Colleges’ Fine Arts Dialogue Day.
Broadfoot, an award-winning sculptor and painter, will do a bronze pour of one of her original pieces in the GateWay foundry.
The pour took place in the Gateway Art Studio space and was overseen by Susan Mills, the Fine Arts Program Coordinator for the Division of Liberal Arts at GateWay as well as community members who attended the event.
Mills coordinated the Fine Arts Day with Linda Speranza an award-winning, internationally renowned Ceramicist and instructor of the Arts at Mesa Community College. Mills teaches Drawing and Sculpture at GateWay and is also an accomplished Sculptor who has exhibited throughout the United States and has several permanent large outdoor installations in Arizona and Nevada.
Mills had met Broadfoot by chance on Facebook in 2013. That meeting on social media led Mills to take students to visit Broadfoot’s studio in the Czech Republic on the annual Gateway Study Abroad Program in Prague that Mills directs.
“Never could I imagine what started as a few messages between colleagues on Facebook would result in a tour of her studio, which is a giant kiln in the Czech Republic and then a visit here to help us inaugurate our foundry for this first bronze pour,” Mills shared.
Broadfoot has been a working artist for over 25 years, actively pursuing her international career in both painting and sculpture by working extensively in Europe. Her work in sculpture and painting is vibrant and exciting.
The GateWay foundry has been a labor of love for Mills who conceived of building one for the Gateway Art Studio seven years ago. It is her hope the space will be used by students, teachers and local artists to create an atmosphere of artistic fellowship and community.