Iron artists from the Valley, Outside gather for ‘Art on Fire’ Saturday

WASILLA — Given the recent weather, you can forgive Pat Garley if he’s hoping for clouds this weekend.

“It wouldn’t hurt our feelings if it was just about 60 degrees,” he said.

That’s because, just like the past six summers, Garley will be at the Museum of Alaska Transportation and Industry on Saturday helping run the bellows and pour molten iron into molds.

Yup, it’s Art on Fire time again.

“For 10 bucks, it’s something to do for the whole family,” Garley said.

That $10 is the admission fee, but there’s other stuff for sale you might want to partake in, like Raku pottery — you can paint your own piece and have it fired — or the iron pour itself — there are blocks for sale you can carve into a mold for a square iron plaque.

There’s also encaustic wax painting, a blacksmithing demonstration, dancers, live music and food.

Oh, and your admission price gets you into the museum exhibits, too, which, if you haven’t been to MATI, you should to check out. This museum has everything from trains to trams to buses to airplanes, most of them antiques and all of them interesting pieces of Alaska history.

Garley said that as far as the artists go, the pieces being poured this weekend run the gamut.

“We’ve got everything from faces to plaques to abstract art pieces,” he said.

The event, as it has in past years, brings people from all over the country. Garley said he’d be working with folks from Texas, New Mexico and Colorado.

“These things are really big outside and they’re just starting to catch on here,” he said.

This year is the sixth for Art on Fire. It’s also the sixth for a pour he did in Kenai last week, and Fairbanks hosted its first iron pour two weeks ago.

“It was mid-80s and it was hot,” Garley said of the weather in the Interior.

Garley’s heavy metal artwork is on display statewide. You’ve probably seen it if you’ve been to the Palmer Museum recently. Garley cast from aluminum replicas of world-record-sized vegetables including, of course, a cabbage, but also a zucchini, a beet and carrots.

“That way tourists can get an idea of how big world-record vegetables are,” Garley said.

It’s one thing to be told that someone in Alaska once grew a 138-pound cabbage, it’s another to see a replica of it in person; something tourists can’t do unless they are in town during the Alaska State Fair.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or

andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.

WHAT: Art on Fire

WHERE: Museum of Alaska Transportation and Industry, 3800 Museum Drive

WHEN: Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

COST: $10 per person, children under 12 free