A quiet country town nestled at the foot of Washington's Blue Mountains with one high school and a population of just under 30,000 is the unlikely home of a world-class art organization, the Walla Walla Foundry. On one particular day, curious onlookers outside the unassuming building could have observed a crane lifting a women's torso onto legs to form a giant urethane foam model, several stories tall, now ready to be molded and cast. Once inside, they might have watched expert workers pour glowing molten metal into a monument-sized plaster mold, weld architectural elements, perform wax...