BROOKLINE – Being asked to be president of the Andres Institute of Art, 98 Route 13, completely caught seasoned veteran and strong proponent of the arts, Gail Bloom, off guard.

“It was a surprise,” she said with a laugh. “I moved up here from the Leominster/Fitchburg area about two years ago,” she said. “I wanted to move closer to my family in Milford. And I’ve been friends with John Weidman for almost 40 years and I knew about his art and the symposiums that he started here.”

Weidman posed the question of Bloom joining their board, so she sent her resume and things clicked.

“This fits my resume to a ‘T,'” she said.

“I’m really happy to be working with this group. You can’t thank this bank of volunteers enough.”

A rough tally of volunteer hours totals more than 200 hours per week. Bloom said that number was even higher when the art institute was able to hold bingo games, a huge revenue stream for the nonprofit, cancelled because of COVID-19.

“We lost that so we have no income right now,” she said. “So, we’re trying to expand the audience for the iron melt. This is the second one we have done remotely. The first one was two times the number of people who came into it versus when we had the iron melt on site, so I think people really appreciated the safety issue.”

For those who are unfamiliar with an iron melt, volunteers make scratch boxes that are filled with sand which has a cohesiveness to it.

“When people sign-up, during the first two weeks of October, they’ll be picking up these boxes,” Bloom explained. “What they do is carve out the negative shape of the design that they’d like to see.”

Next, the boxes are returned to AIA with an etched design complete, where they’ll be sent to the Green Foundry in Elliot, Maine for the final process.

“People can pick up their boxes at the end of October,” Bloom said.

The pandemic hasn’t hurt AIA, as their sculptures are featured outdoors.

The AIA donation box always welcomes donations.

“People have been kind,” she said. “The response has been even greater.”

For more information, visit www.andresinstitute.org.

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