Lenoir NC – The final Iron Pour for 2025 will take place at the Western NC Sculpture Center (WNCSC) in Happy Valley on Saturday, October 25 beginning at 5pm with world music by “Mais Ceu” featuring Jonathan Priest. The jazz band “Diminished Sunlight” will follow, and two food trucks will be on site – “Bubba & Mert’s Burgers and “Cravin’ Cave Asian Cuisine.” Admission is free.

In honor of Halloween, there will be contests for best costume and best – carved pumpkin, in both adult and children’s  categories. People will need to bring their own pre-carved pumpkins, and the crowd will judge. Winners will receive an iron tile mold  which can be custom carved at the event, poured with molten iron, and taken home next day.

Beginning at 4pm an iron tile mold-making workshop will open to allow participants to purchase a tile and carve their own design to be cast in iron. Multiple mold shapes are available including pumpkins, bats, skulls and others.

Blacksmithing and raku firing of ceramics will be demonstrated throughout the evening. Artists from Salt Lake City, UT and Memphis, TN  will be on hand to fire their own molds, and Elicia Epstein from Lincoln, MA will begin an environmental installation residency at the Center.

The new WNCSC Indoor Gallery will be open for the entire event, located within the Center, and a new ADA-accessible restroom is now open for visitors.

The Gallery will also be open on Sunday from 1 to 5pm, and offers a way to help WNCSC grow sustainably. Artists from across North Carolina and the U.S. will be showing their work for sale in the Gallery.

One such artist is potter Ryan Catalano from Mebane, NC specializing in vintage utilitarian ceramics. A graduate of Appalachian State University  in December 2024 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Ceramics, Ryan is currently one of the long-term emerging artist residents  at Pocosin Arts School of Fine Craft in Columbia, NC.

The WNCSC outdoor Sculpture Park is open daily during daylight hours at no charge, and features over a hundred sculptures in the

Park and around the Center, as well as along a walking trail into the woods. The Center is located nine miles north of Lenoir on Highway 268, On the campus of the historic Patterson School.

For more information about the Western NC Sculpture Center, please visit www.wncsculpture.org.