Michael Baggarly
Michael Baggarly is an Associate Professor of Art at Middle Tennessee State University where he teaches Sculpture and 3-D Design. He lives and works in Murfreesboro, TN with his wife Melodie and two children Kaia and Caedryn. Michael earned a BFA (Magna Cum Laude) from Western Kentucky University in 1998 and MA and MFA degrees from University of Iowa in 2001 and 2002 as an Iowa Arts Fellowship recipient. His art has been exhibited nationally and internationally in juried and invitational exhibitions. As an artist, Michael is drawn to a range of materials. Working between cast iron, complex steel or wood fabrications, and 3D printed mixed media provides him a range of options to address his conceptual interests. His recent work is focused toward addressing the stress and distancing that has occurred due to the pandemic.
https://www.instagram.com/mdbaggarly/
http://michael-baggarly-ya1c.squarespace.com/
Robin Baker
Robin Baker is an artist and educator working in central Oklahoma. Baker’s personal work explores the lack of connection between industrial society and the rest of the planet. Through the juxtaposition of human and natural forms using industrial and natural materials, He strives to reveal this disconnection and add to the conversation about the destruction necessary to sustain the industrial way of life. He is also part of a collaborative project with his spouse Christyn Overstake. As Green A Studios they create works that elucidate the human actions causing the current mass extinction crisis as well as the actions being taken to mitigate humanities effect on planetary biodiversity. Baker has shown, given talks, and taught workshops throughout the United States, and is currently Teaching Assistant Professor of Art at Oklahoma State University.
Jesse Blumenthal
Jesse Blumenthal is an internationally exhibited, museum collected Artist and Educator residing in Missoula, Montana. In 2019 Blumenthal’s work received a permanent collection purchase award from The Yellowstone Art Museum, was awarded a Montana Arts Council Artists in Schools and Communities Grant supported by The National Endowment for the Arts, and received four separate regional grants to support community based foundry events. Recent public sites have included Salem Art Works, Bozeman Sculpture Park, The International Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron Art, Sculpture in the Wild, and Open AiR. Jesse was raised in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He attended UMass Amherst, earning a BFA in Sculpture in 2007, and completed his graduate work at The University of Montana, earning an MFA in 2019.
Website and Instagram links: www.JesseBlumenthal.com @JesseBlumenthalArt
Hopi Breton
Hopi Breton is a faculty member the Art Department at Diablo Valley College, in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she also heads the sculpture program. She earned a BA from Loyola University in New Orleans and an MFA from Montana State University. She has organized and worked with students and peers to create cast iron art performances nationally, including the International Cast Iron Art Conference at Sloss Furnaces in Birmingham, Al, The Western Cast Iron Art Conference, in Denver, CO, and the Fire Arts Festival at the Crucible in Oakland, CA. Hopi has also curated several exhibitions, including “Metaliform, All Things Metal”, “Between Places; Photography and Sculpture”, and “Turf; Ecological Activism and Art” at Diablo Valley College’s Art Gallery.
website: http://hopibreton.squarespace.com/
Jason Sheridan Brown
Jason Sheridan Brown received his M.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1999 and has been teaching Sculpture at the University of Tennessee since 2001. Brown’s artwork has been exhibited nationally, including solo and group exhibitions in 22 states, and internationally in Canada and New Zealand. Some recent public art projects include large-scale outdoor sculpture installations at the Josephine Sculpture Park in Frankfort, Kentucky, and Franconia Sculpture Park in Shafer, Minnesota. Brown is involved in a number of collaborative public art projects in an effort to engage in civic dialogues about individual, community, and place. His work engages other disciplines including architecture, ecology and landscape design. Brown has been the President of the Mid-South Sculpture Alliance board of directors since 2018, which seeks to advance the understanding that sculpture educates, affects social change, and engages artists, art professionals, and the community in dialogue.
Ashley Hope Carlisle
See WCIAA Board member Biography page
Ashley Hope Carlisle creates art using drawing and sculptural processes to speak about how animals of all types disseminate due to natural causes, environmental change, or instinctual will. Utilizing formal concerns, the sensitivity of touch, and luscious materiality, Ashley Hope produces works that take both roles as visual guidance when confronting the uncomfortable, as well as reassurance when dealing with the inevitable. She is an active member of the art & science community bridging constraints of thought and practice through interdisciplinary collaboration allowing art to bring a voice to scientific questions. As an artist, Ashley Hope has created sets and costumes for Locust: The Opera, she has created public art pieces for Laramie Game and Fish and South Cheyenne High School and has been the recipient of the ISC Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award. She has exhibited all over the United States, Italy, England, and Morocco, and is Co Owner of Winddriven Studios LLC which is currently creating a new public art piece for the Engineering Education and Research Building on the University of Wyoming campus. She received her MFA in Sculpture from the University of Georgia in Athens, her BFA in Three-Dimensional Design from the University of Southern Mississippi, and is currently Professor of Art in Sculpture at the University of Wyoming.
Ashley Hope Carlisle is originally from New Orleans, Louisiana, but has comfortably made a home in Laramie Wyoming with her husband David Jones, and their son Dylan Elijah.
Instagram: #ahcarlisle
Gwen Yen Chiu
Gwen Yen Chiu is a Chicago based artist who creates abstracted images of the human form, often enhanced with figurative appendages and fantasy prosthesis. Her work critiques and mimics human emotion, gesture, and interrelations. Her process, although features cast and fabricated metal as its core, is often an orchestration of mixed materials such as fabrics, organics, plastics, coding, etcetera. She currently operates her artistic practice out of the west loop of Chicago whilst assisting in the artistic practice of renowned Chicago sculptor, Richard Hunt.
Website link: https://www.gwenyenchiu.com
Instagram link: @gwen.yen.chiu
https://www.instagram.com/gwen.yen.chiu/?hl=en
Jeremy Colbert
Born and raised in southern Oklahoma among the rivers, rolling hills, and beautiful land, Jeremy was taught to respect nature and to embrace his rich Native American heritage of the Chickasaw Nation. Jeremy’s grandfather, a Chickasaw Legislator, taught him to be proud of his heritage and his people. As he has become more comfortable with himself, his art, and his content, Jeremy has found it important to face the challenge of exploring his heritage through sculpture.
Jeremy Colbert studied Sculpture and Ceramics at Southeastern Oklahoma State University where he received his undergraduate degree in Fine Arts in 1999. After graduating SOSU Jeremy attended Florida State University and received his MFA in sculpture and ceramics in 2002. Jeremy taught Sculpture, Ceramics, and Foundations at FSU, sculpture at the University of South Alabama, and Drawing at Springhill College. Jeremy begin working at the University of Kentucky in 2008-2016 as the Facilities Specialist in Sculpture and Ceramics, and from 2016-Present as Lecturer of Art in Sculpture, Ceramic, and Foundations.
jeremycolbert.art
https://www.instagram.com/jeremycolbert74/
Jeff Crawford
Florida State University, MFA University of Tennessee, Knoxville, BFA
Most recent work; 2019 Restored Jim Sanborn, Cyrillic Projector. Guest artist 2018 –Led Iron Pour and Foundry practices at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Crawford reconstructed Robert Rauschenberg’s sculpture “Tracer” for American Choreographer Paul Taylor’s dance Tracer (1962) funded by an Art Works grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) for the support of this project. NY Times Critic Alastair Macaulay noted the work presented in New York City at the 92nd Street Y. The work was presented at the MoMa in NYC, 2017. 2015 Crawford was project manager for the installation for sculptor Mel Chin’s Sea to See, at The Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC. In 2009-2011 Crawford worked as a fabricator and the head of the paint and restoration department for sculptor John Henry, Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Wendy Ernst Croskrey
Wendy Ernst Croskrey is a professor at UAF. She received her MFA from Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, in 1990. Professor Croskrey has been a visiting artist and presented workshops in Alaska, Arizona, Canada, Colorado, Minnesota, and Texas. Solo and two-person exhibitions include The University of Tasmania, Australia, Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, The International Gallery in Anchorage, Alaska, Nemo Art Gallery Anchorage, Alaska, Jeffery Tabor Gallery in Columbus, Ohio. Other invitational/juried gallery exhibitions include The Babuino Arte in Rome, Italy, The Poimena Gallery in Tasmania, Australia, the University of Alaska Museum in Fairbanks, Alaska, the ASU Art Museum in Tempe, Arizona, the University of Hawaii Art Gallery, Beijing, China, and Chuck Leviton Gallery in New York.
Website https://www.uaf.edu/art/faculty/
Pawel Czekanski
Paweł Czekański born in 1989 in Lublin, Poland. Studies at the Faculty of Painting and Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts E. Geppert in Wrocław, completed with a sculpture diploma in the studio of prof. Janusz Kucharski in 2014. Assistant at the Department of Sculpting Techniques at his alma mater. He lives and works in Wrocław.
https://www.instagram.com/pawel_czekanski/
Yousif Del Valle
BFA Texas Christian University 2008, MFA University of Minnesota 2012, Austin Community College Sculpture Faculty since August 2020
Gerry Dumlao
Retired Educator, Sculptor
1964 Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree, Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, OH
1966 Master of Fine Arts Degree, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI
Sculpture instructor at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI (11 yrs)
1998 Retired as Professor Emeritus, after teaching Beginning and Advanced Sculpture for 21 years at San Diego State University.
After retiring there has been more time to travel and devote to sculpture, exhibiting and collaborating on public art commissions. One notable project I’m particularly proud of was our team winning the competition for the city of San Diego to create a large sculpture honoring Dr. Martin L. King Jr.
My sculptures are personal responses to materials and forms which I come into contact with in my daily life and in nature. While the shapes I choose have no literal meaning they can suggest many things.
Jordan Myles Eaton
I am a welder and foundry man at Bronzeage Art Casting, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I graduated with a BFA from the University of South Dakota in 2013. I started an iron casting business, Nordic Iron, that is a subset of Bronzeage Art Casting. We cast iron on the sun holidays and do community workshops teaching about the casting process. I have many different series in many different mediums. Currently I mainly work in iron, but I don’t limit myself to one medium.
https://www.facebook.com/bronzeageartcasting/
Mike Feeney
I am a recovering artist currently working as a maintenance machinist for a water company in Oakland, CA. Every once in a while I fall off the wagon. Thanks to Tom Fox for reminding me that I still make art from time to time.
Tobias Flores
See WCIAA Board member Biography page
Toby was born in Flagstaff, Arizona in 1971 and grew up in Glendale, Arizona. He studied printmaking, drawing and sculpture in San Diego receiving a BA from San Diego State University in 2000. At SDSU he studied metalworking with master sculptor Gerald Dumlao. He studied sculpture and blacksmithing at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale receiving an MFA in 2003. He now lives and works in Hays, Kansas with his wife, Libby and their two boys, Cooper and Oscar. He has exhibited in over one hundred shows throughout the United States, Wales and China.
Tom Fox
See WCIAA Board Member Biography page
Chicago IL. 1961 –
San Diego CA 1981 –
Adjunct art instructor: UCSD Craft Center, San Diego Community College District, Grossmont Cuyamaca College district, San Diego State University.
Owner / Artist: Slaghole Enterprises and TomFox Art and Design (TFD)
President and executive board member: Western Cast Iron Art Alliance
Equipment technician: Department of Art and Design San Diego State University, San Diego CA.
Material and process in service of ideas.
Hannes Garrett
Phoenix artist, Hannes Garrett strives for simplicity with his work. In love with process, Hannes says his tools and materials work with him as much as he works with them. Jewelry maker, Blacksmith, Foundryman, Hannes’s relationship with his materials is all about that swirling moment in existence when they were together. Whether it’s stone or iron, wood or gold, steel or silver, he says “the gift and grace of hand and work combined is the dream of life realized”.
http://instagram.com/hannesgarrett
Jack Gron
Jack Gron was born in the steel- producing town of Steubenville Ohio in 1951. He received his BFA degree in sculpture from the Columbus College of Art and Design in Columbus Ohio in 1973. Jack attended Washington University in St. Louis where he earned his MFA degree in sculpture in 1976. From 1976-1980 Jack operated a sculpture studio in Chicago where he fabricated and installed several large -scale public works , exhibited in Chicago galleries and served as adjunct instructor at community colleges in the area. In 1980 Jack moved to Cincinnati Ohio and taught sculpture and ceramics at the University of Cincinnati, exhibiting his work in city wide galleries. He accepted a position as professor of fine arts at the University of Kentucky in Lexington where he taught sculpture for 20 years and served as Chairman of the Art Department for 7 years. In 2002 he accepted a position as Director of the School of Art at Northern Arizona University for three years and exhibited public works in that region. In 2005 Jack was offered the posi- tion of Chairman of the Department of Art at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi where he served that institution until his retirement in 2017.
Jack now lives in Houston where he maintains a career as a full-time sculptor.
All through his academic career, Jack has maintained a high profile as a working artist in developing a national and international reputation. His many public works in the US and abroad all had developed through collaborative exchanges with local communities and institutions.
James Luke Hayes
James L Hayes is contemporary visual artist based in Cork Ireland. He has multi-disciplinary art practice, making sculptures, installations and films as well as developing large scale commissions and public art projects.
He exhibits his works nationally and internationally, recent projects were held at The Regis Center for Arts at the University of Minnesota & The Franconia Sculpture Park, Minnesota, and La Salle College of Arts in Singapore. Recent commissions have been created for The Office of Public Works(OPW), The Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Mayo County Council. Other recent works and installations were exhibited at the MART Gallery, in Dublin, The UNO Gallery in New Orleans, Art Market Budapest and The SUPERMARKET Art Fair Stockholm .
He has received numerous awards from the Arts Council of Ireland, Culture Ireland, Cork City Council and Cork County Council to support his practice and he is the principal Lecturer in Sculpture at Crawford College of Art in Cork.
Paige Henry
Paige Henry lives in Pittsburgh, PA and works as the Assistant Maintenance Manager for Rivers of Steel; primarily doing structural arc welding on the Carrie Furnace Historical Site. As well as welding on a historic blast furnace and in industry — Paige has thirteen years in working/teaching/directing art foundry practice, with a focus on iron casting.
Jonathan Hils
Jonathan Hils is a Professor of Sculpture at the University of Oklahoma School of Visual Arts where he teaches digital fabrication, CAD, and oversees the Caver Digital Fab Lab. He’s completed numerous public art projects and commissions globally. He maintains a studio in Norman, OK with his wife Jackie and two dogs Moose and Charlotte.
Website and Instagram links:
https://www.instagram.com/jwhils/
Daniel Hunt
Daniel Hunt earned his B.F.A. and A.M. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and M.F.A. from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. Hunt is an expert in working with a variety of materials, often building the equipment necessary to produce the work. His work has been exhibited widely in the United States and he holds the rank of Associate Professor Emeritus at Kansas State University.
David Jones
See WCIAA Board Members Biography Page
David Jones, originally from Augusta, Georgia, received his BFA in sculpture from the University of Georgia in 2000. For the following year he resided in Birmingham, Alabama where he worked in the Sloss Metal Arts Artist-in-Residency program casting iron before going on to pursue his masters degree. In 2004 he received his MFA in sculpture from the University of Tennessee. After graduate school, he moved to the Rocky Mountain West in Laramie, Wyoming.
The western landscape has proved to be a significant influence that has surfaced in the aesthetic and themes of Jones’s work over the last fifteen years. In addition to working in the studio, Jones has begun to expand his creative process to working outdoors in sites such as the Center for Land Use Interpretation in Wendover UT, and the Red Desert region in southern Wyoming. David is currently on faculty in the Visual Art Department at the University of Wyoming as an Instructional Art Technician.
Aaron Juarros
Tilting ladles since 1993. New Mexico is my home. My extraordinary family are Beth, Luca and Ariel. A few of my beloved pursuits are making art in any medium, guiding fly-fishing trips and playing records on Big Toes HIFi Reggae Soundsystem.
FB IG – Aaron Big Toe Juarros, www.ziafly.com
www.aaronjuarros.com
[email protected]
Rian Kerrane
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Born in Galway, Ireland, Kerrane received her BA in Fine Arts Degree from the University of Ulster at Belfast before migrating to the United States where she earned her MFA from the University of New Orleans, Louisiana. Currently residing in Denver, Colorado, Kerrane is Professor in the Visual Arts Department at the University of Colorado Denver where she was awarded researcher of the year in 2017. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally in Latvia, Italy, Austria, Mexico and Ireland.
The Keynote for IRON R 2, Cork, Ireland in 2014 and a featured artist in the IRON R 18, Kerrane maintains her relationship with her home. She recently completed a residency at the National Sculpture Factory, Cork, Ireland, and a solo exhibit, Line of Inquiry, at The Glebe Gallery in Donegal.
As a founder and board member for the Western Cast Iron Art Alliance she contributes to planning conferences, exhibitions and other iron events supporting the interconnectivity between art practice and the community/individual experience. A contributor in steering the 7th International Conference in Contemporary Cast Iron Art (ICCCIA) in Latvia, she was co-director for performances for the 8th ICCCIA in Scranton, Pennsylvania in 2018.
Her work, The Oscar Wallpaper was commissioned in 2019 for Between Us, the alleyway project sponsored by Downtown Denver Business Improvement District. WE THE PEOPLE, a community project with the History Colorado Center coincided with their American Democracy exhibition in fall 2020.
https://www.instagram.com/rianannk/
Noah Kirby
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Noah Kirby received his Undergraduate degree the University of Tennessee in 1998 and his Masters degree from Washington University in 2000. Noah has worked for Cassily and Cassily Inc. at the City Museum in St. Louis, and runs N.K Metalworks in St. Louis. His work has been shown throughout North America at such venues as The National Ornamental Metal Museum, Bradley University, Auburn University, The University of Mississippi and String Gallery in Toronto. He currently teaches blacksmithing, fabrication, metal casting, 3-D Design, and public art practice for Washington University, and is Co-director of Six Mile SculptureWorks in Granite City, IL
Lauren G Koch
Originally from the Appalachian foothills of Northwest Georgia, Lauren G. Koch is an interdisciplinary artist and classically trained musician, who prefers songwriting and playing folk instruments. In 2016, she graduated from the University of West Georgia, with concentrations in sculpture, printmaking, and a minor in art history. Spring of 2020, she successfully presented her thesis defense and exhibition amid the COVID-19 quarantine, completing her MFA at the University of Maryland. She will be remaining in the DMV area teaching art at Shepherd University and throughout the region.
Lauren was steeped in the traditions and crafts of Northern Europe and Appalachia. Her artwork serves as a conduit for fleeting personal and collective memories. For almost 20 years, she has been involved in the iron casting community and is recognized for her utilization of ferrous metals and natural colorants for mark making.
Elizabeth Kronfield
Elizabeth Kronfield is an artist living and working in Holley, NY. She is a Professor of Sculpture at Rochester Institute of Technology where she also serves as the Graduate Director of the Fine Arts MFA program. She has travelled throughout the United States, Italy and China making and exhibiting work. Elizabeth came to cast iron as a medium and process in 1997 and has participated, exhibited, and presented at many WCIAA, National, and International cast iron conferences which have led to meeting some incredible artists, different collaborations throughout the years, and many friendships. She currently is making work trapped in time with her husband, Matthew Wicker, and their daughter Teagan.
Website: Elizabethkronfield.com
Instagram: @elizabethkronfield
Both of which she never takes the time to update.
Coral Lambert
Coral Lambert produces process based site-specific work and public sculpture. She has a significant background as a steel sculptor and metal caster.
By 1990 she achieved her B.F.A at Canterbury School of Art and M.F.A at Manchester Metropolitan University. She received an International Research Fellowship at the University of Minnesota from 1994-97. She has exhibited in 10 one person and 143 group shows, 78 of which were Invitational. She is an original ‘Iron Maiden’ and Founding Director of USUK Iron Symposium 1997-2012. She Co-Founded New Orleans Sculpture Lab 2000- 2005 and Co-Chaired the 5th International Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron Art in 2006 at the World Heritage Site of Ironbridge and Coalbrookdale, UK. She has received 22 awards and was recognized in the top three ISC Outstanding Educators for 2019 and 2020.
She is Professor of Sculpture at Alfred University, NY where she also directs the National Casting Center Foundry.
Website and Instagram links: www.corallambertsculptor.com
@coral.lambert
https://www.facebook.com/coral.lambert.9
Ryan Lamfers
Ryan Lamfers was born and raised in the Midwest. He earned a BFA in sculpture and painting at Kansas State University and his MFA in sculpture at Arizona State University. His inspiration is drawn from a variety of outdoor adventures which afford him the time to reflect on the changing relationship of a mechanized society and its impact on nature. Ironically the work employs metal fabrication and foundry techniques coupled with woodworking to create large-scale sculpture addressing such environmental issues as water, air, noise and visual pollution. Ryan exhibits his work nationally and is currently a lecturer at the University of West Georgia.
Instagram Lamfers_Art
David Lobdell
See WCIAA Board Member Biography page
Las Vegas, New Mexico
Born and raised in southwest Louisiana and resides in New Mexico since 1985. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Southwestern Louisiana (now University of Louisiana at Lafayette) in 1979 and Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Notre Dame in1982. He is now Professor of Fine Art and Chair of the Visual and Performing Arts at New Mexico Highlands University. The Western Cast Iron Art Alliance elected him as the founding President in 2008 and currently serves on the board of the company.
His interests are in thermal processes that include ceramics, metal working and performance works.
Elena Lourenco
Elena Lourenco received her MFA in Sculpture from Arizona State University in 2007. As a graduate student, she received a travel scholarship to study the physical and spiritual connection between people and the landscape along the Ganges River in India, which had a profound effect on her work. As a post-graduate student, she studied abroad at Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland. Lourenco creates mixed media objects and installations that communicate powerful narratives about both society and self: utilizing metaphor to communicate ideas of causality, change, loss and their resulting effects on the human psyche. Her work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions across the US and Internationally including Scotland, Latvia, and the Italy. Lourenco has taught all levels of Sculpture, since 2008 and currently lives and works in southern California.
Kelly R Ludeking
Manifesting collaborative and individual artistic visions in the cast metal, glass and welded arts.
Kelly graduated from Minneapolis College of Art & Design (MCAD) in 1997 with a BFA in sculpture and furniture design. Here he was introduced to the feral fires of iron casting and the precision of fine furniture crafting. Ludeking has participated in, facilitated and hosted hundreds of iron pours since. In 2008 he co-founded Ironhead Sculptural Services, LLC, a traveling iron foundry that shares the art and appreciation of cast iron sculpture and performances with local community members.
Website and Instagram links: https://www.kellyludeking.com
https://www.instagram.com/krlmetals/
Or Instagram @krlmetals
Robert “Zane” Mahanna
Born and raised in Western Kansas, I belong to the last of an analog generation. Prior to the rise of technological hyper-connectivity, the confines of rural isolation meant that the world of fine art, hidden behind the walls of galleries or museums remained largely inaccessible. Funneled through varying conduits of pop culture, fantasy art, illustration, heavy metal, and lowbrow, all became the collective impetus for me to make art in my formative years. Much of my work is derived through lost wax casting, by pushing materials and processes to an outcome that cannot always be determined. The juxtaposition of foundry work and lowbrow influence has come to define my sculptural output.
Instagram: @ _heavy_z
David M Marquez
David received a Master of Fine Arts in sculpture from The University of Iowa in 2003. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Western Kentucky University in 1998 with a focus on Graphic Design. He has been teaching Sculpture at Western Kentucky University since 2007. There, he teaches 3-D design and advanced courses in sculpture. Along with several solo exhibitions, his work has been included in numerous national and international juried, group and solo exhibitions throughout the United States. He has shown internationally in South Korea, Germany, and Australia. David is an active member of the arts community. He resides on the board for Sculpture Trails Outdoor Museum, he is currently on the steering committee for the National Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron Art and Practices, and is Faculty Mentor to the League of Sculptors at WKU.
Website and Instagram links:
Website: http://davidmarquezart.com/
Instagram: david_m._marquez
Instagram: wku_league_of_sculptors
Bryan W Massey, Sr
Bryan W. Massey, Sr. is currently the Department of Art & Design Chair and Professor of Art (Sculpture) at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway. He is currently in his 33rd year at UCA and his third year as Chair.
Erika Ann McIlnay
Erika Ann McIlnay is an artist currently working from Dallas, Texas. Even though she is living and working in Texas her heart is still in the place she was born and raised; Illinois. She lived most of her life living on a farm outside of New Bedford, IL. It was living and working on the farm were her material interests and her construction techniques began. There was never a dull moment where something wasn’t being repaired or built. Her mother was also a strong influence. Being a strong woman who worked multiple jobs to keep the family a float has had an everlasting effect on McIlnay’s work ethic and approach to making work. Family is highly important to her and is always at the forefront of her creative “self.” She was once told her work was like poetry, every piece was a verse. It has been her goal to bring that internal poem to visual light.
Website: www.erikamcilnay.com
Christopher Meyers
See WCIAA Board Member Biography page
Christopher Meyer is a member of the Board of Directors for the Western Cast Iron Art Alliance and Associate Professor of Sculpture at the University of South Dakota. Meyer’s work ranges from non-objective to representational sculptural objects, sculptural installations and performance work. Christopher’s studio practice tends to emphasize material and process and is made from a large variety of materials including cast metals, carved or fabricated wood and steel, fibers, mixed media or “whatever the piece needs to be.” Since 2014 Meyer has made a deeper investment into cast iron; building furnaces and equipment necessary to make iron, bringing cast iron to the University of South Dakota and hosting an annual iron pour event at his home studio in rural South Dakota called the “Little Pour on the Prairie” each spring. Meyer’s work has been published in several visual art publications regionally to internationally and has exhibited in over 100 regional and national exhibitions. Meyer is also the host for the next Western Cast Iron Art Conference October 2021 in Vermillion, SD.
instagram– christophermeyer4556
Nikki Moser
Nikki Moser’s work has manifested itself in cast iron, printmaking, photography, textiles, mixed media, video and sound. Driven by a desire to assemble objects and ideas in ways that recast light, propose an alternate dialog and subtly implicate the viewer, her media corresponds intimately to the concepts. Often her studio projects include community engagements aspects. She was co-chair of the 2018 International Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron Art. In 2010 she co-founded Keystone Iron Works, an Iron Casting program for at risk high school students, which has been awarded two National Endowment for the Arts awards along with The F. Lammont Belin Award and a Willary Foundation Award. She regularly exhibits her work and has sculptures in many private collections. She sews, likes playing with fire, and makes excellent chocolate chip cookies.
Mary Neubauer
Mary Neubauer’s has completed public art projects including interactive works involving light & sound. Her work has appeared in international exhibition venues in the USA, Europe and Asia. Working at the intersection of art and science, she is active in Ars Mathematica & Art-Science Collaborations. She has been a visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome, and a Fulbright Fellow in Cambridge, UK. She is on the board of directors for Digital Stone Project in Tuscany, where she has been an exhibitor and instructor since 2013. She has been an artist in residence at the Anderson Ranch Center for the Arts, the Tyrone Guthrie Center in Ireland, the John Michael Kohler Arts and Industry Residency, and the Arctic Circle Expedition. Mary is a Presidents’ Professor of Sculpture and its area coordinator at the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University, where her practice involves 3D visualization from a sculptural and interactive viewpoint.
Jennifer Odem
Jennifer Odem is a New Orleans based artist with a specific focus on investigations in sculpture, drawing and site-specific work. Motivated by geologic formations, architecture, textiles and found materials, the work explores issues of landscape and home. While factors such as weight, volume, and materiality resonate within the sculptures, there is an underlying element of absurdity and contradiction that speaks to gender issues, human relationships, and our connection to the environment.
Odem’s recent exhibitions include, Ear to the Ground: Earth and Element in Contemporary Art , curator Katie Pfohl, NOMA, From the Batture: Sculptures and Drawings, 511 Gallery, NY, Prospect 4, New Orleans, curator Trevor Schoonmaker, Map and Territory, Sternsstudio in Vienna, Austria, “A Building With A View”, Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans.
Her artwork has been featured in publications including, New York Times, ARTnews, Art in America, Freize Magazine, Sculpture Magazine.
Alison Ouellette-Kirby
See WCIAA Board Member Biography page
Alison Ouellette-Kirby received her Undergraduate degree in sculpture and photography from the University of Windsor in 1993 and her Masters degree from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville in 1996. Her work has been shown both nationally and internationally at The National Ornamental Metal Museum, The Walker Gallery at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, The Washington University Medical School of Medicine, The Art Gallery of Windsor and String Gallery in Toronto. She is a Professor of Art at St. Charles Community College. Alison and her husband, Noah Kirby, also a sculptor are Co-Directors of Six Mile SculptureWorks, a not-for-profit Sculpture Center in Granite City, Illinois. They live in St. Louis with their two dogs and a cat.
Christyn Overstake
Christyn Overstake is a sculptor and artist currently based in Oklahoma. Her background as a MIG/TIG combination welder and fabricator significantly informs her material, process, and conceptual frameworks. She produces work to deliberately subvert and undermine the methods, ideologies, and values of capitalist mass production. She works extensively with metal fabrication and foundry processes, and also ventures into installation and mixed media. She also has collaborative project with her spouse Robin Baker. As Green A Studios, they create work exploring the human behaviors perpetuating the current global mass extinction event, and actions being taken to mitigate biodiversity loss. She has lived, poured metal, and exhibited work across the United States. She is currently Assistant Professor of Art at East Central University.
GreenAStudios.com
Instagram.com/christynlene
Kenneth Patrick Payne
Sculptor Kenneth Patrick Payne was born in Milwaukee Wisconsin.
He received his MFA from the University of Wisconsin. He has completed large scale sculpture projects in several countries including China, Hungary, Israel, Finland, Latvia, Estonia and the United States. He has shown widely and is represented in many public and private collections. He has lectured widely on his work both here and abroad. He has served on and chaired many national and international conference panels and symposiums. www.kennethpayne.net
Wayne E Potratz
Professor Emeritus and Scholar of the College Emeritus
612-378-0121
< http://www.ironwain.com >
“Ferrum Nostrum non est Ferrum Vulgi”
Kerianne Quick
Kerianne Quick is a Californian artist/craftsperson and Assistant Professor of Jewelry and Metalwork at San Diego State University. She has been awarded numerous grants; most recently a SDSU University Project Grant for her project [A] Portrait of People in Motion which investigates the role objects play during and after a migration journey. Her research is rooted in exploring craft as cultural phenomena and material specificity, with an emphasis on jewelry and personal adornment. Highlights from her exhibition record include the Museum of Art and Design in New York, Museo Franz Mayer in Mexico City, the National Museum for Women in the Arts in D.C., Salon del Mobile in Milan, and Design Week Amsterdam. Her work is included in major collections such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, and the Netherlands Design Museum (Stedelijk).
Website and Instagram links:
https://www.kerianne-quick.com/
https://www.instagram.com/materialsmithing/
Vaughn Randall
Vaughn Randall is currently the professor of sculpture at the State University of New York in Cortland. He received his MFA in sculpture from the University of Washington in Seattle, and his BFA in sculpture from Georgia State University. He was instrumental in the development of the Sloss Furnaces Metal Arts program in Birmingham Alabama and served as the President of the International Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron Art. He has been an active member of the cast-iron art community for over 30 years. Randall has an extensive background in both industrial and artistic foundry processes, and is trained as a model maker and a master wood patternmaker. His work has been exhibited extensively and is in the collection of the John Michael Kohler Art Center, the University of Alabama in Birmingham, SUNY Cortland, the US National Park Service, the Chinese Cultural Council, Jingdezhen, China, as well as many private collections.
vaughncrandall is Instagram
Stacey Rathert
Stacey Rathert is an artist originally from the way outs of Kansas. Rathert received her BFA and BS in Education in 2011 from Fort Hays State University. She received her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Mississippi in 2015 and currently teaches at the University of Mississippi in sculpture and foundations. Despite her short stature, she is a teller of taaall tales. Working in a variety of scale, Rathert creates artworks that tell exaggerated and fantastical stories centered on themes of personal identity. Relating to the performance of exhaustive story telling, she is most drawn to materials that require meticulous methods to transform. Outside of her academic and artistic endeavors Rathert enjoys a good, medium rare KC Strip with a side of carbs, knitting, cooking but not doing the dishes, bowling, walks with her dog Mabel, escapes to the farm, and moving heavy stuff, over and over again.
@slrathert
Rainey Rawles
Rainey Rawles is an Atlanta based artist who explores the relationship between humor and the macabre within her sculptural work. She received her B.F.A. in drawing and painting from Kennesaw State University, where she also studied woodworking and sculpture. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia (MoCA-GA), Mason Murer Fine Art, Kibbee Gallery, and OZ Magazine, and is featured in private collections in the Atlanta area.
Website and Instagram links: www.raineyrawles.com
@raineyrawles
Cassandra Rebman
Cassi Rebman is a sculptor from Belle Plaine, MN, and makes work about strength and weakness in the human condition. She is an alumnus of MCAD, Franconia Sculpture Park and of the National Ornamental Metal Museum and Ironhead Sculptural Services apprentice programs. Cassi Rebman currently reside in Hays, Kansas, where she is pursuing her MFA.
Tamsie Ringler
Tamsie Ringler is an installation and foundry artist whose performative iron casting events engage environmental and political awareness. Recent projects include Fenced, performed at the Festival of High Temperatures in Wroclaw, Poland, the River Lee Project, held at the National Sculpture Factory, Cork, Ireland, and River of Iron: Pouring the Mississippi, performed at the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis. Recent exhibitions include Still Life, at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and Cutting in, at the Backspace Gallery, University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has received numerous awards including a 2017 McKnight Fellowship and is a member of the Royal Society of Sculptors.
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.
– RW Emerson
Website link: tamsie.com
Danielle L Robinson
Danielle L. Robinson was born and raised in Southern California. She is a sculptor and adjunct professor at Fort Hays State University and Crowder College. She received her MFA Degree from Fort Hays State University, and her personal works of art have been in numerous group exhibitions. Her sculptures are inspired by her natural surroundings. Her abstractions of landscape terrain use a multitude of environmental concepts relevant to erosion, drought, and rising seas. Her forms manipulate the space to create visual balance, using texture, harmony, and rhythm.
Danielle’s enjoyment of “the process” evolved into a passion for working in metals. Her work is composed of cast iron, fabricated elements, and found objects. The process of creating the object and then seeing all the components come together, it is an exciting ride but nothing compares to opening your mold after an iron pour!
Instagram link: @Dlrobinson25
Isaac Sandoval
I live and work in Las Vegas, New Mexico. In 2012 I cast a giant skillet, it set me on the trajectory that I am currently on. After receiving my B.F.A from New Mexico Highlands University, and M.F.A at Fort Hays State University, I converted an Airstream Argosy into a food truck and operated that for three years outside my studio. In 2017 I opened a brick and mortar restaurant and bar, The Skillet, where both art and food, can be enjoyed by everyone who visits. The Skillet is an evolving project that is one part restaurant, one part art space. I run this project with my wife Shawna, and daughter Charlotte. I drink my coffee black, have two cats, Tim and Tuna, think french toast is the ultimate breakfast carb and I try to approach my life like I fry my eggs, over easy.
Phoenix Savage
Phoenix Savage earned a bachelor of arts in photography from Mississippi Valley State University, a master of arts in medical anthropology from The University of Mississippi, a master of arts in sculpture from Northwestern State University, and a master of fine arts in sculpture from Georgia State University. Savage works in a variety of casting mediums from cast iron to cast porcelain. She is a Fulbright Fellow, having spent a year in Nigeria studying the African lost wax technique of metal casting. Savage is a recipient of the 2019 Mississippi Humanities Teacher of the Year and has been awarded Scholar-in-Residence at New York University for two consecutive years, 20180and 2019 . Her work has been featured nationally in
in solo and group exhibitions. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Art at
Tougaloo College and visiting Professor of Art at Brown University.
Website and Instagram links: www.phoenixsavage.com
I.G- phoenix.savage
Luke Sides
Luke Sides began his BFA at Odessa College, Odessa TX. He finished his BFA and received his MFA in Sculpture at the University of North Texas, Denton TX. Luke’s sculptures are created using a variety of materials and processes: steel fabrication, cast bronze and plastics, and woodcarving. Recently Luke’s work has focused almost exclusively on Cast Iron.
Luke has participated in a number of juried and group exhibitions throughout United States, and is currently represented by Valley House Gallery and Sculpture Garden in Dallas TX, Graphite Gallery in New Orleans LA.
Luke Sides is a Professor of Art/Sculpture at Collin College, and has been teaching there full-time since 2002. He is currently teaching Sculpture I and II, Design II, and Art Appreciation.
Website and Instagram links: www.lukesides.com, http://www.valleyhouse.com/thumbnails.asp?mode=page&idx=244, Insta: @luke_sides
Michał Staszczak
(Michał Staszczak (born in 1979 in Wrocław, Poland) studied sculpture at the Academy of Art and Design in Wrocław. At present he leads the Art Foundry at the Academy. He received a PhD degree in fine arts (2012) and became an associate professor in 2019. Staszczak builds furnaces and casts his sculptures in aluminium, bronze or iron. He leads mould making workshops and metal pours. One of the founders of the Festival of High Temperatures, which consists of workshops, practical demonstrations, lectures and presentations in three art disciplines: cast metal, ceramics and glass. The event has been taking place since 2007 and is designed for professional artists, as well as for the public. Staszczak has been the curator of the cast metal section and the director of the whole event since 2015. He has taken part in numerous exhibitions and his works are in public and private collections.
Website and Instagram: www.michalstaszczak.pl
Instagram: michalstaszczak_art
Miles Woody Stauffer
Woody Stauffer originates from Minneapolis, MN. Casting metal, concrete, dirt molds, and digital sculpting are enjoyable processes for him. The year of 2020 began with his MFA exhibition at Fort Hays State University. Woody currently still resides in Western Kansas. Rot and rust are some of his favorite aesthetics to conjure. Woody can be found within his business, WSSG Designs.
Instagram: @_wssg_
Website: wssgdesigns.com
Rich Stewart
Rich Stewart is an informally trained sculptor Covid-ing in San Diego. Rich has been active in the cast iron arts community since 2007 and exhibited in juried exhibitions throughout the western states since 2007. Rich’s work ranges from an exploration into the American manifest destiny to commentaries on popular culture, all as a part of the “punk surrealism” movement.
@richarthell
Kristy Summers
Kristy Summers, a working sculptor living in Anchorage Alaska was born and raised in the mid west. She graduated with her BFA from the University of Kansas (Lawrence, Kansas) in 2002, and her MFA from Alfred University (Alfred, New York) in 2006. Following her studies at Alfred University, Kristy was awarded a Fine Art Fellowship position at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, where she continued to work as a visiting assistant professor of sculpture and 3D foundations. She found her way to Alaska in 2014 and is currently the Assistant Professor of Sculpture at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Kristy has exhibited her art work at various venues throughout the country including a number of sculpture parks, city outdoor sculpture programs, universities, and gallery settings.
Durant Thompson
Durant Thompson is a Professor of Sculpture in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Mississippi. He is originally from Connecticut, but grew up mostly in Knoxville, Tennessee. In 1997, he received a BFA in Sculpture from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and in 2001 he earned an MFA in Sculpture from Louisiana State University. Durant has been actively showing at exhibitions across the the country and abroad over the past two decades. He has been working as a metal fabricator and castor for three decades in order to create his art. Recently he has been adding advanced woodworking and woodturning processes and skills to his toolbox.
Website and Instagram links:
durantsculpture.com
@runningbull
Ted Uran
See WCIAA Board Member Biography page
In the 18 years, 3 months and 20 days or so prior to the covid, Ted Uran enjoyed teaching sculpture and woodworking at Scottsdale Community College. He hopes to continue this in a hybrid format this fall and is thankful for all the years of practicing safety in the workplace.
He enjoys spending time glamping throughout Arizona, with Brenda his wife of 22 years, and their two border collies.
Uran received his MFA from Arizona State University in 2000, and in 1995 received his BFA from Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
James Vanderpool
James Vanderpool holds his BFA from The University of Kentucky and an MFA in sculpture from Georgia State University, where he specialized in foundry and woodworking. Originally from Lexington, KY, he returned after grad school to teach studio art at The University of Kentucky and Eastern Kentucky University. James is currently the Foundry Operations Manager at the Metal Museum in Memphis, Tennessee. His personal practice focuses on industrial and functional objects as well as topography and, at times, comedic relief. He believes that objects and places hold history and have the ability to tell a story, so he too, tries to find that message in his works.
James Vanderpool
Foundry Operations Manager
METAL MUSEUM
Kevin Vanek
Kevin Vanek was born and raised in Cleveland, OH, a great industrial city that for decades was known for the making of iron and steel products, a history that he honors in his craft. It is here, amongst the callused hands and rust stained clothes of hard working individuals that Kevin began his exploration into the technically skilled world of hand manipulated metal work. Beginning in the footsteps of his Father, Uncle, and Grandfather, Kevin had his first job at 14 as a maintenance worker in the apartment complexes of East Cleveland. Further pursuing this passion he sought education in welding, engine mechanics, and carpentry throughout high school. As only the second person in his family to go to college, Kevin struggled to find his place in collegiate academia. Soon though he followed his desires for creation and was introduced to Sculpture and Metal Casting. Kevin received his BFA in 3-dimensional studies from BGSU and his MFA in sculpture from ECU. Since then he has displayed work across the country, been an Artist in Residence in multiple programs, worked as a custom metal fabricator, and currently works as the Studio Technician/Adjunct Faculty at the University of Southern Mississippi.
Website: www.kevinvanek.com
IG: @kevin_n_stuff
Roberto Visani
Roberto Visani is a multi-media artist residing in Brooklyn, NY. He has exhibited at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Bronx Museum, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and Barbican Galleries. Visani has been awarded grants and residencies from Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Chelsea College of Art, New York Foundation for the Arts and is a former Fulbright Fellow. His work has been reviewed by the New York Times, Art Forum, Art News, and Frieze among others. Since 2004 he has taught at John Jay College CUNY, where he is an associate professor of art.
Website and Instagram links: ROBERTO VISANI
Instagram: visaniroberto
James Wade
Influenced at an early age by industrial, agrarian and vernacular landscape, James Wade explores the evidence of our presence in these areas through sculptures and drawings. Histories and observations become contemplations about the meaning of place. Wade combines traditional techniques with hybrid fabrication processes. Digital methods of 3D printing, CNC routing and laser cutting complement woodworking, modeling and alternative patternmaking practices to prepare forms for metal and synthetics casting.
Wade studied art at the University of Kentucky and the University of Georgia, earning a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1996. Wade’s sculpture and drawings have been included in over 100 exhibitions across the United States as well as in England, Bolivia, and Italy. He works from a studio on his family’s land-grant farm in Lexington, Kentucky.
Walter Ware III
Walter Ware III was born in Bad Kreuznach, West Germany in 1970, but grew up in the farming town of Fountain in Southern Colorado. Thirty years ago, he moved to Denver where he married and raised his family. Ware has an affinity for iconic images, landscapes and relics of the past. He creates forms and objects that are embedded with a narrative reflective of human culture, drawing on themes from folklore and history.
Matt Wicker
matt wicker is now old. he once sought some education. funny thing was the information he searched for was not filling; all the externalities were the real substance of the teaching. his hair, what is left of it, is mostly white. he has liver spots. his gums are receding. he wakes up with the same pains that he had three or four days ago. he has known love, knows love. he is well past the age that anyone should listen to a single breath that vibrates his larynx. he might know only one thing, “do what you can while you can”.