Get in contact with metallic art inspired by nature at By Hand Gallery at 101 W. Kirkwood Ave. #109.
The exhibit “Contact” will be on display June 1 to July 31 at By Hand Gallery.
Created by Michal Ann Carley, co-head of Luna Song Designs, the steel and glass pieces are inspired by how natural elements change, evolve and decline.
“Michal Ann studies and draws the nature in her surroundings and pays particular attention to its physical and metaphorical movements: those of growth, transition, and adaptation,” according to the By Hand Gallery website.
After earning two master's degrees at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, Ann was Curator of Art at the UW–Milwaukee and professor of art and art history at Cardinal Stritch University.
She began working with kilnformed and torchworked glass in 2001, and began blacksmithing and sculpting in 2009.
She and her partner forge and fabricate glass and woodwork, and teach studios at Luna Song Designs.
To capture the complex elements of natural change found in “Contact” in steel and glass, the concepts required simplification and abstraction, according to the By Hand Gallery website.
“The processes involve heating the steel to 2,000 degrees and using 100-year-old tools to forge and shape it,” according to the website. “Similarly, the glass rod is heated in a 3,000-degree flame, then pushed and pulled into the desired shape.”
Clark Gudas
