About the Item

Spider

2025

This creature is forged and welded steel.

H: 9" x W: 8" x D: 5.5"

Weight: 1 lb

About the Artist

Leah Aripotch is a metal sculptor based in Oakland, California. She was born is 1987 and raised in Montauk, New York. She spent her childhood in swamps catching bugs and reptiles, surrounded by the lore of the abandoned air force base in her childhood backyard. She studied painting at SCAD for three years before transferring and receiving her BFA in sculpture from Academy of Art University. Upon graduating, she began a paid apprenticeship in a commercial fabrication shop under her mentor, Brian Martin. Three years later, she opened her own metal shop where she has since focused exclusively on making art. Her work has gone down the runway at Mercedes Benz Fashion Week, featured in various magazines and publications, and displayed in museums across the country, including the Museum of Metal, the Fuller Craft Museum, Haggin Museum, and the DeYoung. A forever student of the metal arts, she continues to train and learn under masters of the craft and is constantly pursuing the equipment and knowledge necessary to push the limits of what can be hand built in steel. She lives in Oakland with her husband and two cats and builds monsters and aliens out of her metal shop.

About the Item

Shaved Box

2025

Made from patinated steel and silicon bronze, this double-walled box was made through scoring and bending a piece of sheet steel, and welding the seams together. The seams were then ground, and a swivel lid was attached.

4" x 4" x 4"

About the Artist

Sophie is a metalworker and furniture maker currently based in Reading, PA. She makes classic furniture designs recreated out of steel to give voice to women in both the woodworking and metal fields, and she utilizes steel in the making of her work to explicitly expand upon the materials that are considered to be part of the fine furniture making field.

Sophie received her MFA in Furniture Design and Woodworking from San Diego State University, and BFA in Sculpture and Drawing from SUNY Purchase College. She has exhibited her work across the country, including Blue Spiral 1 Gallery (NC), the Center for Art in Wood (PA), and the Metal Museum (TN), and has been fortunate to receive several grants, fellowships, and residencies to help advance her career, including the John D. Mineck Fellowship in 2022. Sophie currently teaches at Kutztown University, and has taught workshops at A Workshop of Our Own, Penland School of Craft, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, the Appalachian Center for Craft, and Haystack Mountain School of Crafts.

About the Item

Wrapped Sphere

2001

Compressed ball of coated copper wire enclosed in two parcels of the same material.

7" x 5" x 6.5"

About the Artist

Nancy Koenigsberg is a fiber artist whose woven wire sculptures are simultaneously delicate and industrial, employing traditional fiber techniques with non-conventional materials that are at once airy and solid. Her works are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Art and Design, the Textile Museum in Washington D.C., the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Cleveland Museum of Art, among many others.

About the Item

Guitarist

2026

Forged steel figure playing a guitar on an upset square base with a rust-pitted texture.

"This piece is part of my musician series. Using power hammer isolations and mass manipulation, I create a simplified human form and exaggerate its posing to portray movement in the piece."

Sculpture: 15.5" x 5"

Base: 4" x 4"

About the Artist

"I grew up in the American South in Raleigh north Carolina. From a young age, I was always building things in the woods out of whatever I could get my hands on. This passion for creating was channeled in high school when I began to blacksmith in my backyard. After this, I attended the American College of the Building Arts (ABCA) in Charleston, South Carolina, with a focus on architectural blacksmithing. During my summers, I would travel to study with blacksmithing artists around the world, including internships in Detroit, Greenville, and even an internship in Italy and Austria working on sculptures with Roberto Giordiani. It was during this time that I discovered sculpture through blacksmithing. I graduated from ACBA in 2023 and moved to Chicago, where I worked on hand-forged furniture and lighting fixtures. From there, I transitioned into grad school at SIU Carbondale. My sculptural work now explores relationships through the material lens of traditional blacksmithing connection methods."

About the Item

A brush with naked reality can provide a new handle on life

Salvaged brush bristles with a cherry wood handle carved by Tom and a mounting bracket forged by Tom

11.5" x 4" x 1.5"

About the Artist

Tom Latane constructed a primitive forge in 1972, in his parent's backyard, after watching the blacksmiths at Colonial Williamsburg. Following high school graduation in 1973, he went to work at home producing forged iron and hewn wood products for art fairs and consignment shops. Tom attended three semesters of metalsmithing and jewelry classes at Towson State University in the late 1970's. Since 1983 Tom and his wife Catherine (Kitty), have operated a shop in Pepin, Wisconsin repairing antiques and producing their own work incorporating historic design motifs from various traditions. He has demonstrated at numerous ABANA conferences as a founding member of the Patient Order of Meticulous Metalsmiths and taught at six different craft schools. From the beginning, Tom has been more impressed by the work blacksmiths of the past were able to produce with skill and simple hand tools, than by the potential of modern technology.

About the Item

Raven on Pine Snag

2026

Considered the most intelligent birds, ravens display high learning ability and use of logic for solving problems and have even been taught to count.

Oxidized steel botanical.

Ready to hang indoors or out.

Each panel is signed by the artist and varies slightly due to the natural oxidized finish which will evolve over time.

15.5 x 6", 1/16" steel (16ga)

About the Artist

Since establishing the studio in 2010, Daniel Moore has developed a multidisciplinary practice centered on steel fabrication, sculptural design, and the transformation of industrial materials into work that responds to landscape, architecture, and public space.

Moore grew up in Iowa City, Iowa, and attended the University of Iowa, where he earned a BFA in Graphic Design and Photography. His education continues to inform his approach to sculpture. Graphic design contributes an emphasis on composition, proportion, line, and visual communication, while photography has shaped his sensitivity to light, framing, perspective, and the relationship between an artwork and its surroundings. His early experience working in graphic design ultimately led him toward a more physical form of making after being downsized from a corporate design position.

The landscapes of the American Southwest have become an important source of inspiration. After moving to Arizona, Moore developed a sustained interest in the region's botanical forms, geological structures, intense sunlight, and expansive desert environments. Experiences hiking, backpacking, and mountain biking throughout Arizona have provided a direct and physical understanding of the landscape that informs both his imagery and his approach to site-specific work.

In recent years, Moore has increasingly focused on public art, completing 16 public art projects over the past decade. His work ranges from intimate architectural panels to large-scale sculptures and site-specific installations. His work has also been commissioned and developed for civic, educational, recreational, and institutional environments.

At the core of Moore's practice is a belief that art can make people look more closely at the places they inhabit. Whether drawing from the structure of a desert plant, the mechanics of a scientific object, or the changing qualities of light and shadow, his work seeks to transform familiar materials and ideas into experiences that encourage observation, curiosity, and connection.

About the Item

Twist

1997

Red cube in twisted coated copper wire

6" x 6" x 6"

About the Artist

Nancy Koenigsberg is a fiber artist whose woven wire sculptures are simultaneously delicate and industrial, employing traditional fiber techniques with non-conventional materials that are at once airy and solid. Her works are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Art and Design, the Textile Museum in Washington D.C., the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Cleveland Museum of Art, among many others.

About the Item

Puffy Black Heart with Arrow

2026

A big puffy heart made of black steel. This hollow black steel heart is crafted by hand using the inflated steel technique. A heart shape is cut flat in sheet steel, welded together around the border, then heated to orange hot in a blacksmith forge. Once the steel heart is glowing tangerine white orange hot, it is immediately inflated using compressed air. The soft steel sheet puffs out like a balloon, shooting black scale everywhere and creating this unique puffy heart shape with a bespoke black oxide finish. This version of the steel heart sculpture also has a black bar stock heart welded right through the center. The surface of this big puffy heart is a raw, inconsistent sooty scale that is not sealed and changes over time. Each puffy heart is made similarly but each heart has a unique surface and is one of a kind. Two steel rings are welded on the back so this puffy heart easily hangs on your wall with only two screws.

Heart: 9" x 8" x 4"

Arrow: 14" long

About the Artist

"Hi! I'm Sarah. I am a contemporary studio jeweler and sculptor.

I received my Master of Fine Arts with a focus in Jewelry and Metalsmithing from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and my Bachelor of Fine Arts in Crafts Materials Studies and Sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University.

My limited production jewelry and sculpture can be found in galleries across America. I live in Chicago where I work as a studio artist, metals instructor and mom.

My work investigates how female identity is constructed and performed through the body.

The female body is site and content for my work and yields series in sculpture, drawing and limited-production jewelry. I source and celebrate imagery and histories of women that rebel against cultural expectation of the submissive female. Working inside this contested space I use traditional and non-traditional craft techniques to challenge these expectations by creating a role reversal through material."

About the Item

Liberty Rolls

1991

"Three rolls of electrical wires in red, white and blue. It is a good representation of my work from this period and can be arranged in different configurations. An appropriate piece for the country's 250th birthday."

6" x 9" x 6" each

About the Artist

Nancy Koenigsberg is a fiber artist whose woven wire sculptures are simultaneously delicate and industrial, employing traditional fiber techniques with non-conventional materials that are at once airy and solid. Her works are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Art and Design, the Textile Museum in Washington D.C., the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Cleveland Museum of Art, among many others.

About the Item

Creamer from the Fred Fenster Cup

2026

Pewter

"I studied with Fred Fenster and Eleanor Moty at UW-Madison in the 1970s. Fred came to Purdue Fort Wayne and presented wokshops for my students several times in the 2000s. Learning from him and working with him was always a fun and delightful experience.
This pewter creamer is made from the basic cup pattern Fred used in his workshops. I simply turned it over and modified the design to add a spout, handle, and bottom."

9" x 4 1/4" x 2 3/4"

About the Artist

Robert Schroeder is currently teaching metalsmithing and drawing at the Department of Art and Design, Purdue University - Fort Wayne, Indiana. He also works as an independent curator. His career as a museum professional and curator is extensive and spans three institutions. He has taught metalsmithing, drawing, and design at the university level since 1994.

Schroeder came to the Fort Wayne Museum of Art to be a curator from the University Art Museum at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he held the position of Registrar. Prior to living in California, he was the Registrar/Collections Manager at the Madison Art Center in Madison, Wisconsin (renamed the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art in 2004.)

Schroeder attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison, earning a BS in Fine Arts. He began graduate study at Temple University's Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia and returned to UW-Madison, finishing an MFA in Metalsmithing and Sculpture.

As Curator of Exhibitions for the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Schroeder was responsible for coordinating the Museum's exhibition program and assembling exhibitions, having worked with well known artists such as John Newman, Hollis Sigler, Mary Beth Edelson, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Hung Liu, Nick Cave, William Morris and Dale Chihuly. Along with giving gallery tours and planning exhibition-related programs and interpretive materials for exhibitions he has organized and traveled to museums nationally, he has lectured extensively on various topics of both historical and contemporary art subjects.

Leaving the museum field in 2002 to pursue making and exhibiting his own artworks, Schroeder has taught metalsmithing, drawing, and design as an Adjunct University Professor, and has also acted as an Independent Curator.

About the Item

Small Blue Bowl

Aluminum and powder coating

8"

About the Artist

Rachel Suzanne Smith is an artist, metalsmith, and educator. She received her undergraduate degree at Miami University in Art Education with minors in 3D Media Studies (jewelry/metals) and Spanish. She received her MFA in Crafts (Jewelry Metals Enameling) at Kent State University in 2015. Smith taught Jewelry/Metals, CAD for Jewelry, and Makerspace Exploration/Digital Fabrication courses at Kent State between 2015 and 2020. Smith now dedicates her career to growing, supporting, and managing academic makerspaces. Currently, as the Fabrication Manager at Sears think[box], Smith works to uphold a safe and accessible shop environment that is free and open to everyone.

As a practicing artist, Smith maintains a studio practice in North East Ohio. She creates works to exhibit in addition to a small number of limited production works that can be found at Ombre Gallery for sale. Smith is active in the craft and jewelry community, and currently serves as Board President of the Ohio Designer Craftsmen and the Ohio Craft Museum. In addition to her personal studio practice, Smith maintains a studio partnership with NE Ohio artist Jennifer Ramirez.

About the Item

Medium Blue Bowl

Aluminum and powder coating

13"

About the Artist

Rachel Suzanne Smith is an artist, metalsmith, and educator. She received her undergraduate degree at Miami University in Art Education with minors in 3D Media Studies (jewelry/metals) and Spanish. She received her MFA in Crafts (Jewelry Metals Enameling) at Kent State University in 2015. Smith taught Jewelry/Metals, CAD for Jewelry, and Makerspace Exploration/Digital Fabrication courses at Kent State between 2015 and 2020. Smith now dedicates her career to growing, supporting, and managing academic makerspaces. Currently, as the Fabrication Manager at Sears think[box], Smith works to uphold a safe and accessible shop environment that is free and open to everyone.

As a practicing artist, Smith maintains a studio practice in North East Ohio. She creates works to exhibit in addition to a small number of limited production works that can be found at Ombre Gallery for sale. Smith is active in the craft and jewelry community, and currently serves as Board President of the Ohio Designer Craftsmen and the Ohio Craft Museum. In addition to her personal studio practice, Smith maintains a studio partnership with NE Ohio artist Jennifer Ramirez.

About the Item

Large Blue Bowl

Aluminum and powder coating

15.5"

About the Artist

Rachel Suzanne Smith is an artist, metalsmith, and educator. She received her undergraduate degree at Miami University in Art Education with minors in 3D Media Studies (jewelry/metals) and Spanish. She received her MFA in Crafts (Jewelry Metals Enameling) at Kent State University in 2015. Smith taught Jewelry/Metals, CAD for Jewelry, and Makerspace Exploration/Digital Fabrication courses at Kent State between 2015 and 2020. Smith now dedicates her career to growing, supporting, and managing academic makerspaces. Currently, as the Fabrication Manager at Sears think[box], Smith works to uphold a safe and accessible shop environment that is free and open to everyone.

As a practicing artist, Smith maintains a studio practice in North East Ohio. She creates works to exhibit in addition to a small number of limited production works that can be found at Ombre Gallery for sale. Smith is active in the craft and jewelry community, and currently serves as Board President of the Ohio Designer Craftsmen and the Ohio Craft Museum. In addition to her personal studio practice, Smith maintains a studio partnership with NE Ohio artist Jennifer Ramirez.

About the Item

Fractured Sleeve

2022

Cast and fabricated pewter

In creating the Facture/Fracture series, Mimlitsch-Gray poured plaster slabs and
attempted to form them, knowing that the material would break; uncertainty guided
her design methods. She made moulds and pewter casts of the plaster exploration, capturing qualities of the sketch and action in metal.

4.6" x 3" x 2"

About the Artist

Myra Mimlitsch-Gray (b. 1962) explores craft as subject and object, engaging the field's history and methods to interpret utility and form. Her studio practice is at times speculative, theoretical, and in conversation with pedagogical concerns. She conceptualizes material conditions to construct fictions and portraits. Facture is explored as an idea and then constructed as an image; this research is reflected in the objects she generates.

Mimlitsch-Gray received her MFA in Metalsmithing from Cranbrook Academy of Art. An American Craft Council Fellow, The Metal Museum honored Mimlitsch-Gray as Master Metalsmith in 2014 and presented her solo exhibition, Staging Form. She was named Master of the Medium by the James Renwick Alliance. As professor she received two Chancellor's Awards from the State University of New York: Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities, and Excellence in Teaching. She has been awarded individual artist fellowships by the United States Artists Foundation, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Mimlitsch-Gray's work is widely exhibited and included in public collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Museums of Scotland, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. She maintains a studio in the Hudson Valley of New York.

About the Item

Fly

2026

"When I was a girl my mother taught me about birds and we watched them, named them, fed them at a feeder outside the kitchen window. She died when I was 31. I think of her always when I watch and feed the birds outside my own kitchen window. My mother's cancer was brutal and very quickly robbed her of the freedoms a healthy body allows us. This piece is for her, symbolic of death setting her body free to fly again. Fly high Mom!"

approx. 8" x 8"

About the Artist

Stephanie Savic Polk moves through multiple scales from urban installations to small, exquisite elements for the body. For over four decades, her work with handmade glass, enamels, precious metals, steel and stones has defined her as leading artist in metalsmithing techniques. The human figure is often featured in her work, whether adorning the body or for sculptural pieces. For Stephanie, explorations of the heart are expressed in material, weight, scale, and shape.

She has exhibited in shows and exhibitions across rivers and roads in the Midwest and the South where she has received numerous awards and accolades for her creativity as a Metal Artist.
​
Always unique and stunning. Often one-of-a-kind. She lives in Memphis, Tennessee with husband Walter and their little red dog.

About the Item

In the blink of an eye

2026

"In Zen Buddhism, the cicada is a symbol of impermanence. This 5 foot tall, half inch thick hand cut cicada wing is a memorial Sculpture for my good friend Neena Wang, who passed away a year ago. I taught her Metal fabrication three years ago in my studio and we worked together on a couple of projects. She loved the look of hand cut plasma edges, and I made this piece in collaboration with her spirt. It is my hope that this Sculpture honors her immense talent and her short time on this earth."

Wing: 5'7" x 0.5"

Base: 30" diameter

About the Artist

"I have both my bachelors and masters degree in Metal Sculpture. I received my masters right here at the University of Memphis under Greely Myatt. I have been volunteering at the metal museum since 2006. I am a working artist, and have had a successful sculpture studio in New Chicago for the last eight years. I have six permanent sculptures at the Memphis botanical garden, and many other public sculptures around the city. I am a figurative Sculptor that loves to make indestructible bulletproof fine art."

About the Item

Gingko Waltz

2026

Enameled and bare metal ginkgo leaves drift through the air, capturing a sense of movement, lightness, and whimsy. The leaves seem to dance in their own waltz. Inspired by the numerous ginkgos along my walks. Cooper, brass, enamel, leaves.

11" x 14" x 3"

5 pounds

Note: Can be hung on a wall or stand alone.

About the Artist

Lauren Estes has always been involved in the art world but has recently found her passion with jewelry making and copper art. She is fascinated with patinas and finding the right mixtures for the various colors in her rivers and maps.

About the Item

No.6 Succulent

2026

Cast Iron, Foundry Pit Sand, Green Sand, 2 7/8" Socket

Note: This item contains green sand that may spill. Please handle with care.

"Iron pours are often large, communal, destination events. Many times artists arrive to them days in advance with their piece sculpted in wax, which must then be molded in sand, the wax melted out, and then iron poured in. There are many stages of high-intensity work in the whole process, but also many moments where there is nothing to do but wait for things to heat up, cool down, dry, etc. I often occupy myself during these moments of rest to use the melted wax being recovered from the molds to make petals, which I then build into succulents to be cast at the next pour I join. Their size grows according to opportunity, and so just as the wax remembers the lines in my palms and fingers, I remember in them all the little moments of conversation and collective making held in their time's shaping, whorling out from their centers.

This particular succulent is a bookend of sorts - it was sculpted during the quiet moments of my dear friend Andy's inaugural pour at Arkansas State University, and poured a few months later here in Memphis during the final F.I.R.E. held on the bluffs. I chose hens and chicks as the model succulent for these pieces, having great fondness for them as hardy travel companions in my life as a metal artist on the road. I cannot tell you all the beautiful memories recorded in the unfolding of these petals, nor can I communicate all the parallels I see between how a passion for foundry work blooms among those who encounter it and the patterns of growth I've observed in my time caring for these plants, but I hope that each one carries the unmistakable marks of love that make any gathered object a grateful garden bed for our wayfaring hearts' succor as we tumble our way through time."

6" x 6" x 6"

About the Artist

Jami Honey is a metal artist specializing in forged and cast iron work. Her last four years of peregrinations have found her touching ground at Touchstone Center for Craft, Sloss Furnaces, Carrie Furnaces, Center for Metal Arts, and the Metal Museum, among many others. She believes that in consideration of the tremendously extractive nature of its production, it is a duty of care we are obliged to uptake to be thoughtful about how we wield the power of metal in the world. She strives to accomplish this with works that express humanity, engender community, and promote continuity between ourselves and the world that gave us all this wild opportunity of being.

About the Item

Coiling

2026

Pewter, aluminum, steel, ethically sourced shell, recycled plastics and resin

Through casting and fabrication Phillips explores nature, memory, and place in her art practice.

6"H x 8" W x 4" D
Weight: 4 lb. 14 oz.

About the Artist

Cozette Phillips earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in Metals from the State University of New York at New Paltz and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture and Illustration from the Columbus College of Art and Design. A 2016 Metal Museum Tributaries artist, Cozette's sculptures have been exhibited nationally and internationally with sculptures held in both public and private collections. An artist, curator, educator, and arts advocate, her multidisciplinary career is shaped by a sustained commitment to her studio practice. She is a Professor of Art at Spokane Colleges and serves as the SFCC Fine Art Gallery Director, where she contributes to the development and presentation of exhibitions, arts programming, and founded the sƛ̓x̣etkʷ Artist-in-Residence Program in 2025. Her professional service includes serving on the Board for Artist Trust and as a curator for the Washington Arts Commission, further reflecting her commitment to advancing the arts through education, exhibition, and community engagement.

About the Item

MM Box

2026

Steel, wrought iron, paint

In creating the Facture/Fracture series, Mimlitsch-Gray poured plaster slabs and
attempted to form them, knowing that the material would break; uncertainty guided
her design methods. She made moulds and pewter casts of the plaster exploration, capturing qualities of the sketch and action in metal.

5" x 3 1/2" x 3 1/2"

About the Artist

Stephen Yusko's studio is located in Cleveland, OH, where he creates sculpture, furniture and vessels, using mixed materials combined with forged, machined and fabricated steel. Yusko has taught at several schools and universities, including Haystack School of Crafts (ME), Penland School of Crafts (NC), and SUNY Purchase, where he was a Windgate Artist-in-Residence; and served on the Board of Trustees for the Haystack School. He is currently on the Board of Trustees for La Caravana Escuela. Yusko has exhibited his work widely including the Metal Museum (TN) and the Ruthin Craft Centre (Wales, UK) and has received three Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Excellence Awards and a Cuyahoga County Creative Workforce Fellowship Award.