From the moment I entered metal class roughly 25 years ago, I knew metal was going to be the major focus in my life from that point on. I took every class available—raising, casting, construction—and after graduating, I started my own shop.  

Now I include etching, die forming, enameling, patination, weaving wire, and chain making in my work. Early on, I found that I like making lamps. So when I had the opportunity, I took some glass classes and learned how to fuse, drape, drop, and cast glass.  

Now I can incorporate glass into my lamps (News Alert: light does not go through metal!). Glass is a difficult medium because of all the possible incompatibilities. I have not studied glass long enough to know them, but I do have success at what I do most of the time.

The piece in the show is called Transformation. One bowl is about time, where the spiral goes from thick-to-thin as time diminishes as we age. The other bowl is about knowledge, where the spiral goes from thin-to-thick. We are born with a lot of time but we have little knowledge. Knowledge increases as we age, whereas time decreases. Transformation is a portal into time and knowledge. The polliwog tadpole is a symbol of transformation and is on the bridge between the bowls. 

I have been making portals for a long time. My portals have a single item in them and they represent the “concept” of that item. The chair in one portal, for example, represents the idea of a chair and the many varied manifestations of that idea. Recently I have been making metal boxes. I received a grant to make urns/memory boxes, coincidentally, and just before the start of Covid. 

I enjoy working on adaptations of a theme and the urn project made variations possible. I am currently working on an endangered bird series. I meet with other women at a clay studio once a week and we make ceramic pieces. The birds are made from clay. The body of the bird is human while the head and feet are the bird. They sit on metal chairs as if in a conference. It will be called, The Conference on Endangered Birds. 

Most of my work has some kind of meaning. I like looking at the interior/exterior – what we feel inside compared to the face we show. I also pull from Greek mythology. Sometimes I like making things representing nature, like a heron lamp, or a cast vegetable from the garden. Most of all, I love spending time in my shop—I am basically a metalhead.

Portals and Portholes includes works of art by 137 artists from 10 states and runs through Thursday, May 26, 2022.