Imagillaboration Collaborative Sculpture Project

Christian Bailey, Saucier Mississippi

Christian Bailey is an art teacher at a high school in the lovely town of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, and is currently rebuilding a sculpture program after years of neglect and one very large hurricane. A graduate of the sculpture program at USM he became enamored with cast iron as both a medium and art unto itself, he offers much props to his professor Skip Van Houten, mentor Durant Thompson, and all the rest of the redneck casting crew. Christian creates his sculptures out of anything that will stand still and some things that won't. Metal working and found object make up the majority of his materials of choice. His current work is an exploration of hotrods, sex and religion and the ruination they can reek upon the meek.

	GROUP 2 FACILITATOR Shelton Holland, Hattiesburg Mississippi I find myself haunted by images that express my feelings about life, but especially from a woman's perspective. By no means am I a feminist, but coincidentally do make feminine art that some may consider garish. I would prefer to call it honest. I find myself exploring ways to illustrate feelings of the ups and downs of intimacy, lust, and of course the ever confusing subjects of love and relationships. Small iron castings seem to be my focus for the past few years. I do not feel my work needs to be large scale to have a large presence. In fact I very much enjoy working small so that I can one day be surrounded by many years of thoughts, stockpiled throughout my home. Painting the iron is also something I like to do to enhance the form and overall feeling of my pieces.

	James Davis.... is a badass

	Jennifer Torres, Hattiesburg Mississippi A BFA from the Cooper Union and an MFA in sculpture from the University of Georgia, Torres has been building sculpture for over 20 years. She works in all mediums but prefers traditional wood and metal techniques. Casting is also a favorite and she has access to a real sweet cupola at the University of Southern Mississippi where she runs the sculpture program.
	Doug Barton, Hattiesburg Mississippi I received my BFA from the University of Southern Mississippi two years ago. Since then, I was working at Keen Foundry, a commercial iron foundry in Houston Texas. I am know working at USM as the shop technician for the sculpture department.
	Christian Bailey, Saucier Mississippi Christian Bailey is an art teacher at a high school in the lovely town of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, and is currently rebuilding a sculpture program after years of neglect and one very large hurricane. A graduate of the sculpture program at USM he became enamored with cast iron as both a medium and art unto itself, he offers much props to his professor Skip Van Houten, mentor Durant Thompson, and all the rest of the redneck casting crew. Christian creates his sculptures out of anything that will stand still and some things that won't. Metal working and found object make up the majority of his materials of choice. His current work is an exploration of hotrods, sex and religion and the ruination they can reek upon the meek.
	Durant Thompson, Oxford Mississippi originally from Connecticut, but grew up mostly in Knoxville, Tennessee. In 1997, he received a BFA in Studio Art from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and in 2001 he earned an MFA from Louisiana State University. A couple of years after graduate school, he moved to New Jersey and worked at The Johnson Atelier School of Technical Sculpture, the site of the 4 th International Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron Art . He then moved on to the University of Southern Mississippi for the two years where he oversaw the construction of the new 32” cupola that will be run at the end of April this year. Thompson is the new sculpture professor at the University of Mississippi where he will be starting a new iron program in the fall of 2006. He has been working with iron as a medium for ten years and incorporates much of the castings with other materials to create his work.