Gwen L Kelling

Over the course of the 2015 fall semester of my senior year at Ohio Wesleyan University, I designed and cast a 21”-diameter iron bell as the focus of an independent study for my major in sculpture studio art. The bell’s text and decorations celebrate the Peace and Justice House, the SLU where I lived since my sophomore year at OWU. The P+J community turned 30 that year and I wanted to commemorate the activism the house’s residents and alumni have fostered over the years. This anniversary was particularly important to us since the future of the historic Perkins house as a residential space was limited due to its deteriorating structure (built in the 1860s, it closed in the winter of 2016). In addition to being an academic pursuit, this bell project also served as my yearly house project for P+J.

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The size of the casting required that Fine Arts professor Jonathan Quick and I augment Haycock Hall’s studio spaces and equipment at almost every step of the project, thereby increasing the foundry’s capacity for the bell and for future students’ work as well. The process involved techniques traditional since the Gothic age of cathedrals: clay forms, wax inscriptions, molten metal. This project has been especially important to the relationship between P+J and Haycock’s foundry program: two foundry-familiar P+J alumni returned for the iron pour and were integral in the completion of the bell’s mold. The bell was cast October 30, 2015.

 

With the bell and its tower finished, Prof. Quick and I collaborated with OWU President Rock Jones and a team led by Peter Schantz at Buildings and Grounds to locate and survey a site on OWU’s main campus where the bell tower can permanently reside. The tower was secured atop a 1-foot-high concrete base beside Elliot Hall, the oldest academic building on campus on April 5, 2016. The bell is rung in its tower, of 11 feet in total height, using a rope connected to the wheel. 

 

The bell has since been rung for commencement of graduation ceremonies, including my own in the spring of 2016. The bell will also serve as the proverbial voice of the Peace and Justice House and the SLU community at large: it will be a sound for celebrating accomplishments, commemorating losses, and calling attention when student activists find circumstances to warrant those actions, based on current events.

 

Thank you Ohio Welseyan Professor Jonathan Quick for your guidance and steady commitment to every phase of this endeavor. There were many challenges of mind and skill that would have been impasses between me and the fully realized process without your advice, dedication and diligence.

 

Thank you Leif Sayvetz and Jonathan McBride for the times we've shared together in our home, the House of Peace and Justice. Time was short the night before the iron pour Fall 2015. I am infinitely grateful for what we were able to accomplish by the next day - sand molded, bell cast - for the preservation of our community.

 

Thank you Jeb Wood, founder of Independent Casting in Philidelphia, PA for your ongoing and up-to-the-minute contribution to the molding and casting process late last October. The bell rings truer for it.

 

Thank you members of Ohio Wesleyan's Buildings and Grounds. Your expertise, open communication and strength have provided this sculpture a setting beyond anything I would've imagined a year ago. Beautiful work.