Form-ative at the Bascom

I am grateful to co-curators Frankie Flood and Elizabeth Walton for including five of my pieces in the Form-ative exhibition at the Bascom Center for Visual Arts. All the metalwork included in the show was influenced by ideas of location, in keeping with the center’s annual theme of Place. Other participants are Thomas Campbell, Seth Gould, Rachel Kedinger, Natalie Macellaio, Erica A. Meier, Erica Moody and Dan Neville. The exhibition runs through July 16 and the reception will be held on Thursday June 16 at 5pm.

How about some arm candy?

There is something so satisfying about a one-day project that lets you make a little something for yourself.

Workshop flier for bracelet tutorial at the Patterson Appleton Arts Center

Craft Nouveau

There are many great competitive craft exhibitions one can count on each year, such as The Octagonal, Materials Hard and Soft, and CraftForms. But its always a pleasure to find a new one pop up; and even better when one has work accepted! I was very pleased to find the call for Craft Nouveau at the Blue Line Arts Gallery. Juror Ariel Zaccheo has a great reflective statement here. If you find yourself near Roseville, California, please check it out. Images of included work and an exhibition catalog are also available on their website.

So excited to be teaching at the Pratt Fine Arts Center!!!

Come join me in Seattle to make meaningful metal miniatures!

Air Currency Opens

I am very pleased to announce the opening of my solo show at the Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum in Mesa, Arizona. The space is lovely and the staff have been wonderful to work with. Stop by if you get the chance!

Art for Everyone

i am very grateful to Heidi Grew and the rest of the faculty at Chemeketa Community College for including my work in their art appreciation textbook, Art for Everyone. This is the just-released revised edition published by Oxford Press.

Monel Metal in Metalsmith Magazine (…say that five times fast! )

An article I wrote for Metalsmith magazine just came to my email inbox today and it looks great! Monel is not well known now, but it has been used in extraordinary ways and essentially created the market for stainless steel in the first half of the twentieth century. I was made aware of the alloy by Warren Holzman, who gave a presentation about its use in the Bryn Athyn Cathedral in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, at a SNAG conference. Later, when I was invited to speak at the 2019 Looking Forward Iron Symposium, I decided to explore the history of this material. I am grateful to Warren, John Rais, and Mike Rossi for their initial support of the research. I am also indebted to Archivist Gregory A. Jackson and Historic Buildings Project Manager Drew Nehlig of Bryn Athyn for their help, as well as Carlier Makigawa, Simon Cottrell, Michael Bondi and Glenn Gilmore who took the time to speak with me about their experiences with the metal.

Wall of Air at Fort Worth Community Arts Center

A new grouping of work from the You See AC series is now on display at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center until September 3rd. Closing reception August 27th from 6-8pm

Here is my official statement (you can tell its official, because I am using the third person):

Wall of Air presents a series of small sculptures by Ana M. Lopez that address our increasingly complex relationship with air conditioning. Conflating references from the decorative and industrial arts, these objects invite the viewer to consider wealth, display, power and privilege as they relate to this modern amenity.

This body of work borrows forms from the ubiquitous, invisible evidence of artificial air handling that populates many rooftops and exterior walls. These metal forms are typically mass-produced by industrial processes but have been recreated by Lopez through small-scale craft practices. The enamel finishes are inspired by historic ceramic vessels from all over the world. Many of the finished works are presented in the format of garnitures. These sets of decorative accessories were typically comprised of imported porcelain or artful bronze work and were popular from the seventeenth century onward. Typically displayed on mantelpieces, they reflected the owner’s taste and wealth. Lopez’s laboriously crafted arrangements of common rooftop objects of air passage invite one to reflect upon the West’s atmospheric colonization of the global climate.

The title piece, Wall of Air, is an installation of four wall-mounted porcelain-enameled steel boxes embellished with silver. The forms are based on the external appearance of through-window air conditioning units. Walls make air conditioning feasible but they also exclude. As climate change brings increasingly severe weather, control of one’s domestic comfort is likely to become a luxury commodity of increased class disparity.

The exhibition was made possible thanks to a Scholarly and Creative Activity Grant from the University of North Texas.

When your work goes more places than you do...

Some of my pieces recently went to Mesa, Arizona, and won the Juror’s Choice Award at the 42nd Annual Contemporary Craft Show at the Mesa Contemporary Art Museum. Many thanks to Juror Gail Brown. The full catalog is online here.

Forging Community… a year ago

Last March I had the privilege to attend the Austin Forging Competition at Mobile Loaves and Fishes’ Community First! Village. It was about a week before the world closed and life as I know it changed. I drove to a different town. I stayed in a hotel and ate in a restaurant. I think I even hugged people outside my family. Weird. The brief article about the competition that I wrote for Metalsmith Tech came out a few weeks ago. It’s a great reminder of what some seriously talented people can do with three hours.

Night Air Garniture in Under Fire 3

I am very pleased to share that Night Air Garniture was selected for inclusion in Under Fire 3. The show is organized by the Enamel Guild North East and will be displayed online here from October 23rd. There will also be a panel discussion with the three jurors on October 25th at 6pm eastern time, “Whats Up With Enamels Today?” The panel includes the Under Fire 3 jurors: Ruth Ball, Mi-Sook Hur, Sienna Patti, with moderator Bella Neyman.

Invisible Metal: Virtual Tour Now Available

Thanks to the hard-working folks at the Appalachian Center for Craft, you can get a sense of the exhibition!

Appalachian Center for Craft, Smithville Tennessee July 1-August 15, 2020

Invisible Metal

My show at the Appalachian Center for craft, Invisible Metal, is being installed right now. Through the perseverance of Director Debra Ruzinsky and Artist in Residence of Exhibitions Glenna Dame Baker, my long hoped-for installation is being realized. The show will be in the Front Gallery of the Appalachian Center for Craft from July 1 through August 15, 2020. They plan to create a video tour of the show, which I look forward to sharing as well when the time comes. Visiting hours are Monday to Saturday 10 am to 5 pm, Sunday 12 to 5. For now, be well, be safe, make art.

When Worn

Jewelry really belongs on the body. Even in isolation the implied body is part of how we read it - in anticipation of its intended location. Kelly Temple at the University of Central Oklahoma has curated a show that addresses this aspect of jewelry: “When Worn highlights the act of adornment. When placed on the body, jewelry transforms not only the appearance of its wearer, but it inserts itself between the adorned and audience as a signal and an invitation between two beings.”

When Worn includes work by Haydee Alonso, Lynn Batchelder, Teresa Faris, Betsy Lewis, Lydia Martin, Samira Saheli, Alejandra Salinas, Jolynn Santiago, Leslie Shershow, Helen Shirk, Lori Talcott, Kelly Ann Temple, Claire Webb, Petra Winnwalker and myself.

The reception will be this Thursday at the Melton Gallery from 5:30 to 7:30. The show is free and open to the public until March 26, 2020.

An image of one of my pieces on their dean.

photographer Sydney Stephenson, model- Steven Hansen

Materials Hard and Soft

I love this show and I am so grateful that it happens in Denton every year. Not only do my students get to see some excellent work from an international selection of makers but some years I even get to participate! One of my newer pieces, Fort Worth Trash Chute, was selected for inclusion this year. The show runs from February 7 - May 9 with a reception on the 7th from 6-9. The juror this year was Beth C. McLaughlin, Chief Curator of Exhibitions and Collections at Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, Massachusetts. She will be giving a gallery talk on Thursday the 6th at 2:30.

Metal Complexions

Louver: Houston is on its way to….Houston, fittingly. It was selected for inclusion in the Houston Metal Arts Guild’s Metal Complexions Exhibition. The exhibition juror was Anna Walker, Assistant Curator of Decorative Arts, Craft, and Design at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The show takes place from February 2nd through the 28th at the Jung Center in Houston. In addition to an opening reception on Friday the 7th of February, from 6-9pm, there will be an exhibition Walk-through with Anna Walker on February 19, from 6:00-7:00 PM. If you are in the area I hope you will check it out!

Cityscape 2020

One of my louvers has traveled to South Korea! Louver: Las Vegas was accepted into the Cityscape 2020 exhibition at the CICA Museum in Gyeonggi-do. You can see more information about the exhibition here. I must say, I get a little jealous when my work gets to go places to which I have never been.

Westward Ho!!!

That is actually the name of the exhibition. It was curated by Gail Brown and is the companion exhibition to CraftForms 2019 at the Wayne Art Center in Wayne, Pennsylvania. It features work by a selection of artists living in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, and Wyoming. I think it is exceptionally fitting that my contribution is Louver: Phoenix. You can learn more about both exhibitions here.

Louver: Phoenix

copper, vitreous enamel

8 x 14 x .5”

Texas Metals Symposium

I am honored to be one of the speakers at the Texas Metals Symposium this year. Rob Glover and his students always do a great job and it has been such a pleasure to attend in past years as a viewer. Getting to present is super-exciting! It will also be the final stop of the “Not-So-Lone-Star Studios: A Gathering of Texas Makers” exhibition artfully curated by Natalie Macellaio and Kathleen Janvier. This is your last chance to see the grouping before the pieces all go to their respective homes. The symposium is FREE but you need to register, which I recommend you do right now because they have filled up in the past. See you there!

Wearable Pewter Goes to France!

After a trip to the Windy City and a sojourn to Istanbul, the Wearable Pewter exhibition has decided to skip off to France. You can see all these glorious works at Alliages in Lille, September 21st through December 7th of 2019. I like the piece I made for this - it has a lovely weight when worn and it makes bell-like chimes as the pieces tap into one another. However, I must say that my favorite piece from the exhibition is by David Harper Clemons. He cleverly carved the wood in a way that causes the cast pewter to lock into place. These radiating planes create an etherial nimbus for one’s neck. If you find yourself in the area, please check out the show.