Exhibitions

a survey of contemporary metal

Thank you to our exhibition sponsors, First Citizens Bank, Brenda & Rick Wheeler, Wendy & Terry Schmoyer, and Abacus!

Exhibition Description

This exhibition focuses on works by metalsmiths from throughout the United States. Both seasoned and emerging artists will be featured, including Boris Bally, Harriett Estel Berman, Thomas Bosse, Thomas Campbell, Katie Cassell, Kat Cole, Cappy Counard, Marilyn da Silva, Jack da Silva, Addison de Lisle, Stefan Gougherty, Andrew Hayes, Mana Hewitt, Matanda Keyes, Jaydan Moore, Vu Nguyen, Rachel S. Smith, Narong Tintamusik, and Logan Woodle. Education programming such as artist talks, panel discussions, workshops, and interdisciplinary activities will accompany the exhibition.

Curated by Tabitha Ott, an experienced metalsmith and executive director of 701 CCA, the exhibition showcases current trends and studio practices of some of the leading metalsmiths working today. This exhibition is part of a nationwide initiative – Handwork: Celebrating American Craft 2026, which commemorates the 250th anniversary.

Curator’s Statement

This exhibition highlights the various metals contemporary craftspeople are manipulating in addition to a wide range of techniques. The title of the exhibition is an alchemical symbol that translates to the latin word metallum which means “metal”. With this symbol, we celebrate the magical nature of metal. Under the flame, a work hardened piece becomes annealed and is soft and ready to be formed again. And to think, this process can happen endlessly! Through this exhibition, I am aiming to expose our community and beyond to contemporary metalsmiths who are challenging the limitations of metal, finding new life in discarded metal objects, transforming raw material into something breathtaking, experimenting with ancient techniques, and discovering new approaches. I am excited to invite you to discover the magic of metal!

Participating Artists:

Boris Bally (RI)

I have always been drawn to materials that carry a history. Rather than beginning with precious metals, I work with recycled street signs, weapon parts, and found materials—things that have already lived a life and come loaded with associations. Using the precision and skills of a jeweler, I transform these materials into objects that are often functional, sometimes humorous or provocative, and always intended to invite a closer look.

The raw visual language of the American street is central to my work. Scratches, colors, lettering, symbols, and evidence of wear are not imperfections to be erased; they are part of the story. I am interested in giving these discarded materials a new identity while allowing traces of their former lives to remain visible.

My work is also deeply connected to my concerns about the world around me. Issues such as gun violence, consumer culture, environmental responsibility, and the increasingly polarized political landscape inevitably find their way into what I make. I do not necessarily want the work to provide answers or tell the viewer what to think. Instead, I use familiar materials and objects to create moments of recognition, discomfort, laughter, and reflection.

For me, making is a way of responding to the world. By transforming materials already embedded with cultural and political meaning, I hope to create objects that can function on several levels at once—as art, craft, design, social commentary, and sometimes simply as something useful for the home or body.

Harriete Estel Berman (CA)

Harriete Estel Berman uses post consumer, recycled materials to construct jewelry, Judaica to sculpture with social commentary. Berman’s art work has been exhibited throughout the United States, Europe, and Africa. Her work has been acquired for the permanent collections of 16 museums including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Detroit Institute of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

All of my work uses post consumer materials destined for the landfill as a commentary about our consumer society. Despite the humble materials, my extensive crafts skills are the foundation for all my work. The materials are transformed by my intent and vision for this work.

Jewelry uses post-consumer recycled materials are not valuable, but reflect the values of our consumer society.

Judaica by Harriete Estel Berman focuses on the concept of Tikkun Olam “repair the world” with the use of post-consumer recycled tin cans.

Sculptures include domestic appliances remarking on the roles of women, the influence of advertising and commentary about our consumer society. Environmental commentary issues include the impact of lawns, and plastic waste in our oceans. Social commentary includes sculptures about our K-12 educational system and our corrupt government of lies.

Thomas Bosse (SC)

Memories of my life as a young adult are blurred and missing. Binge Drinking became a life style and an embodiment of the culture I surrounded myself. Drinking in excess has a heavy presence in the lives of many young Americans, likened to sport amongst willing participants. Glorification of this often dangerous and immature behavior is the norm for many. Jewelry acts as badges and objects as trophies, simultaneously glorifying and mocking my past and the present of others. This work becomes a lens through which I can reassess my youth. They become a mixture of pride and embarrassment. Each piece becomes a self-portrait while referencing the lives of others. By using these objects or wearing them on my chest, I own my actions while accepting the judgement of others.

I still find myself reminiscing over the memories I feel most ashamed, the strange entanglement of joy and regret that permeates my past.

Thomas Campbell (NC)

Thomas Campbell is a fifth generation steel worker living and working in Asheville, North Carolina. He grew up in Decatur, Georgia. Following graduation from Hendrix College, he worked as an industrial steel fabricator for seven years at Bemberg Iron Works, his family’s 140 year old steel business. This work inspired his passion for metal work.

Katy Cassell (SC)

My work explores the interdependence between humans and the biological and botanical worlds around us. From the woodland fungi of the Upstate, to the mussels of the salt marshes in the Lowcountry, the landscapes of the Southeast have inspired my art for the past two decades.

Forms and imagery combine to become physical manifestations of acceptance of mortality and lamentations about the natural world in peril. I find beauty in the forms associated with decay while exploring notions of fragility versus durability, and the cycle of death and rebirth. Cell imagery hints at the origins of new life. 

My studio practice helps me reckon with the limits of a human life span and my relationship to my environment. My work synthesizes my intellectual interests, absorbs my emotions, and communicates my fears. The challenge of combining copper and silver with enamel and glass helps me explore notions of permanence. While the jewelry is sculptural, its ability to function is essential: the wearer brings the art out into the world and sparks interaction with others. 

Kat Cole (GA)

Ephemeral gestures are captured in glass and steel. The process begins with cutting drawn oval shapes, embracing both a gentle form and the irregularity of the hand.  Forms take on volume with the persuasion of the swinging hammer, rhythmic and meditative.  The repetitive actions of this work allow my mind to focus on the task at hand and relax into the process. Enameled surfaces are gleaming puddles of light and color that contrast with the dark roughness of blackened steel left bare.  The result is work that reflects a search for moments of peace in a chaotic world.

Cappy Counard (PA)

Forged holes stretch and diminish, a record of labor, effort and change. Pieces are cut apart and reassembled, creating burrs reminiscent of stitching and mending. Parts are intricately cut and fit together, connections that suggest impact and attachment. Forms are carved from intersecting segments, conveying strength and beauty in the collective.

My chosen vocabulary is visual. By leaving the mark of my tools and the memory of my process, the actions and ideas that most plainly unite us as human beings are amplified. Work, care, storytelling, repair, consideration – ordinary everyday acts of tenderness that can too often be overlooked or undervalued.

Being in relationships and fostering connection requires both intention and devotion. So, I engage in small repetitive acts of making to build a space where differences merge into something in-between. It is in this place of interaction where we can find possibility, love and belonging.

Marilyn da Silva (CA)

My work has become a roadmap of my life’s journey with metalwork as the vehicle. Each series created weaves tales exploring my memories, dreams and visions through both personal and universal stories. Their stratum reveals how I have come to view the world and overlay my path. They are like moments frozen in time. I am most content when working with my hands, holding a hammer and expressing my thoughts through line and form. Drawing has always been a passion, which is satisfied by using gesso and colored pencil as an embellishment on my metalwork. Subtle nuances enhance the details on each surface as layers build into visual textures.

Jack da Silva (CA)

Growing up among a family of artisans and performers, everyone it seemed could start with an idea, get some materials, and then create a pair of shoes, a table, lace curtains… a home village festival. Using primarily simple tools, no visible limits deterred the possibilities of what they sought to make. At home, Mom always had projects going on at our table to keep the kids busy; candles, decorations, building toys.

Since the first time I noticed metal, it has been mysterious and fascinating to me. Not only was it useful as a material for tools, vehicles and architecture, but it is wonderful to use in jewelry and decorative objects as well. While studying metal arts I focused on research of ancient and traditional metalworking techniques. Eventually, many various techniques became evident from around the world. These became incorporated into how I think, create my own work and how I teach.

Daring to dream a bit, seeking to reach beyond my grasp, I found that even dreams could come true. I soon began to see that opportunities often appeared quite regularly. Now, I began to recognize them by looking through a lens of setting my sights on future goals and by opening my mind to any possibility. Eventually, this lead to graduate school, presenting lectures, offering workshops, travel, teaching abroad, museum collections, starting my own studio and a summer program called MAKER in 1999.

I will continue to advocate for arts education, visual literacy, mindful thinking, setting goals, helping others, looking ahead and moving forward.

Addison de Lisle (ME)

My intention is to consider the basis of crafted objects in the un-crafted world. In a sea of “products”, it is easy to forget that not only do most materials derive from nature, but so too must the inspiration for craft itself. Observation of nature surely planted the seeds for the containers, covers, supports, and tools that have populated the craft landscape for millennia. Many of my pieces use natural imagery from the coast to hint at the origins of our material culture, and the ambiguity of raw forms and materials in a finished piece questions the act of making and the role of Craft in contemporary society.

Stefan Gougherty (VA)

Viewing jewelry as public art, these small sculptures are on tour– hitching a ride via their shine and sparkle, and your generous support. This collection of unusual wearable objects is designed to turn heads and make people smile. Lighthearted jewelry that does not take itself too seriously, but relentlessly engineered in pursuit of the new.

Andrew Hayes (NC)

I work with book paper and steel, two materials with very different meanings in the context of our daily lives. The book is an object of education, growth, and escape. Steel is trickier to see and often invisible: its forms make up so many primary structures in our constructed environment. Using book paper and steel, I explore these meanings and find a curious harmony between these materials and the flexibility, history, mass, and density both possess.

I cut pages from old discarded books, removing them from their binding and working with the unbound hunks of paper to explore and respond to the possible, new sculptural shapes the material might take. At some point I introduce metal to the process, giving structure and support to the softer sculptural form of the loose pages. Bringing steel — a material of industry and architecture — to the quiet, contemplative realm of the book excites me. Bracing book paper, steel becomes graceful, its subtle colors and surface amplified: I rediscover the material’s more poetic possibilities. There is flexibility, fluidity, and freedom for me here as an artist. Bound together, book paper and steel make something new and unified. The book takes another form, another mysterious life, off the shelf.

Mana Hewitt (SC)

I have always been interested in new processes and investigating themes inspired by the natural world. This has guided me to an ever-expanding number of media that I employ. My work in metal led to an interest in all forms of enamel most especially cloisonne. My goal is to create jewelry items that are aesthetically pleasing and conceptually interesting.

My studio has always served as a place of possibilities, inspiration and well being. Within its walls I am able to research ideas, techniques as well as create work. My recent works explore themes most often inspired by the natural world. Inspiration has come from observation of nature. These works are first sketched, then the enamel elements are created in fine silver cloisonné. The enamel powder is applied to a fine silver base which is then fired in a kiln up to 1450° F. degrees. Each enamel piece is developed in multiple layers and firings using a wide variety of enamel techniques. I will fire a piece approximately 5 to 20 times depending on the complexity. Once the enameled element is complete I construct the setting in sterling silver. My goal is to create jewelry items that are aesthetically pleasing and conceptually interesting.

Matanda Keyes (NY)

My work explores the theory behind time as it specifically relates to the Black American ethnogenesis. My objects look simultaneously ancient and contemporary, pairing modern technology with traditional craft techniques. This temporal collapse mirrors the musical tradition I inherited: my enslaved ancestors converted discarded raw materials into instruments when their original culture was outlawed, transforming ethnic death into cultural rebirth through ingenuity. My practice continues this lineage, reforming organic shapes into objects that hold multiple histories at once.

I’m inspired by natural destruction. Decay is beautiful. I polish metal without gloves for as long as possible, staining my skin. I introduce fire and allow patinas, preserving the marks they leave. I collaborate with natural phenomena, forming aggressively and allowing accidents to shape final forms. What remains after fire, after oxidation: these imperfect traces are nature’s response to my hand. The work becomes something more genuine. It’s half designed, and half surrendered. 

I create functional objects because function demands interaction with the world. The objects I make are bodies: supported by metallic skeletons and wrapped in the soft tissue of real animals. Like birds and horses, I want them to have purpose. I want them to be alive in this world. 

Since early childhood I’ve formally trained as a drummer and composer. My sculptural practice applies lessons from over twenty years of music study: spontaneity, active listening, and sampling. My visual work bridges these disciplines. I’m self-trained as a metalsmith, but music trained me to be a creator.

Jaydan Moore (WI)

I am motivated by how an object moves through the world, changing in meaning as it is passed down, and how it is cherished as its significance grows. This history of objects has led to my continued exploration of heirlooms. When I witness these historical functional wares in museums, antique shops, and junkyards, I imagine how their previous owners may have affected these objects.

As these possessions become more and more mass-produced, our ability to add relevancy and meaning in this way separates each object from one another. Outliving its owners, metal withstands its daily use, revealing evidence of wear by the dings, scratches and patination that can be read on its surface. I see this accumulated layering of worth as far more precious than the most valuable of materials. Finally, once a metal object has run its course it can be scrapped, melted, and cast, ready to be made into a new object. I believe that the past still lives within the new object. That nothing is lost, only given a new history.

By deconstructing and reassembling found silver-plated tableware into new images I am able to commemorate the individual’s ability to do the same to his/her own valuables and memories. By fabricating a new form out of many fragments from stylistically and historically related objects, I create a new image of what that object means to our society, a representation that takes all memories of its use into consideration. Dissecting these objects, altering their form, and piecing them into commemorative wares there is still some semblance and evidence left of their past incarnation.

Vu Nguyen (VA)

I create functional objects that emphasize the beauty and expressive potential of materials such as steel, titanium, copper, and wood. Forging, fabrication, and finishing are used not to conceal making but to preserve it. Each piece carries visible traces of heat, pressure, and human intervention.

My work is rooted in a long engagement with hospitality and the shared rituals of food, gathering, and celebration. Knives, serving pieces, and tools are made as extensions of those environments. They participate in nourishment and social exchange, carrying meaning through use and repetition.

I am interested in how tools hold presence beyond function. Each object is made to be handled, used, and shared. Material, weight, and form all contribute to the experience of everyday rituals and momentous occasions.

Rather than separating utility from expression, I aim to keep them intertwined. The objects exist as both working tools and physical records of care, attention, and making.

Rachel S. Smith (OH)

Rachel Suzanne Smith’s work reflects themes of identity and ornament, focusing specifically on the desire to connect with the outdoors and nature. Facilitating that need occurs through adornment, allowing the wearer to surround themselves with arrangements and clusters of plants. The wearable sculptures Smith creates serve as a form of self-expression rooted in the biophilia hypothesis, that all humans yearn to connect with nature and other life forms. Utilizing CAD/CAM and digital fabrication tools and techniques, Smith replicates, reviews, revisits, and reworks designs to dig deeper into these ideas and themes from different angles.

Narong Tintamusik (TX)

My work is captivated by the power of material transformation to elevate the unremarkable into something of perceived value through aesthetic camouflage. This fascination reflects my complex journey between cultures. Born in the United States, raised in Thailand, and now residing here again, I feel tethered to, yet distanced from, my Thai heritage. Shame, displacement, in-betweenness, and longing shape my identity. My seven years working in environmental science and my mother, who was a professional chef, left a strong impression on me. This act of processing material and how I digest my life experiences reflects the distortion of the material physically, chemically, and spiritually. Distortion infuses my constructed forms with histories and cultural weight, both that already exist and that are imagined.

My process begins with everyday materials that metamorphose into distant Thai craft objects from a future world. Though I have not inherited direct mastery of Thai craft traditions such as goldwork, lacquerwork, mother-of-pearl inlay, woodcarving, or mural painting, I have a strong desire to transmute the rawness of materials into something removed. Poplar and birch from home improvement stores are dyed with aniline to mimic the richness of ornamental weavings. Patinated copper and brass mesh are treated with Thai food ingredients, enamel, and beeswax to become aged textiles or intestinal flora-like forms. Fused plastics become sites for mural-like abstraction. Palettes of red, green, gold, silver, and bronze, drawn from Thai visual culture, become signals of devotion and value. The resulting objects are from a speculative world shaped by ecological collapse, infrastructural inhibition, cultural assimilation, and spiritual disconnection. It is a place where survival depends on ritual, adaptation, and ancestral knowledge. Through sculpture, painting, installations, and wearable works, I explore what it means to sustain ourselves and others in a setting without access to belonging or care.

When I die and reincarnate, I hope to leave behind not just objects, but a will to create. That will is meant for the next version of myself, and for others navigating the same in-between. Art becomes a form of spiritual persistence, a way to carry memory even when the body or culture falters.

Logan Woodle (SC)

Home. Nothing has been so central to my identity. 200 odd acres of the poorest dirt money could buy has shaped my family for nearly as many years. It has made us rich, then left us poor, and now it almost breaks even. It has fed the pigs and cattle that fed us, and it has laid fallow. More bombs have dropped on it than I could count, only to have the land cleared again and reseeded. I have no right to this land, but it seems to have rights to me.

This work is my way of searching for what this land, and the people that worked it, mean. As I have dug through the past, I find stories, milestones for moments that put me here today. This work uproots those stories, looking in, under, and around them searching for context and hoping their connections bring the answers I need.