KEVIN BURGE
Originally from Springfield, Missouri, Kevin Burge graduated from Missouri State University in 2006. In addition to making jewelry, silverware, and other fine metalwork, he currently heads our Repairs and Restoration Lab. His work has been featured in exhibitions at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Arts Memphis and Missouri State University.
JAMES VANDERPOOL
James Vanderpool joined the Metal Museum in 2014 as the Foundry Operations Manager. James came to Memphis by way of Lexington, KY, where he taught studio art at The University of Kentucky and Eastern Kentucky University. James holds his MFA in sculpture from Georgia State University, where he specialized in foundry and woodworking. James personal practice focuses on industrial objects and topography.
ELIZABETH BELZ
Elizabeth Belz is a metal artist from Stillwater, MN. She was a craft education intern at North House Folk School, Grand Marais, MN, in 2016, where she assisted the school in reestablishing its blacksmithing shop. She was the resident sculpture artist with the Science Museum of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, in 2017 and has won numerous grants to aid in the production and development of her work. She has studied at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Minneapolis, MN; Penland School of Craft, Bakersville, NC; and John C. Campbell Folk School, Brasstown, NC.
REED PECK-KRISS
Reed Peck-Kriss is an artist-blacksmith from Oakland, CA. He built his first forge in his backyard at the age of 12, using vise-grips for tongs and the largest square of steel he could get from the scrapyard for an anvil. Largely self-taught, Reed has worked as a blacksmithing instructor at The Crucible, an industrial arts education center in Oakland, and as the resident blacksmith at Ardenwood Historic Farm. Reed is drawn to organic sculptural forms as well as classical Colonial American ironworking styles.
Jeannie Tomlinson Saltmarsh is a native Memphian. As the daughter of an architect, her interest and love of the arts began at an early age. A University of Memphis graduate, she also attended the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina, as well as courses in blacksmithing, welding and metal casting. Jeannie is the Metals Shop Coordinator & Foundry Technician.
JEANNIE TOMLINSON SALTMARSH
Jim Masterson received his Master of Fine Arts from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio in 1994. He began working at the Metal Museum in 2000 and is currently the Shop Foreman. In 2012 he taught a Public Sculpture class at Penland School of Crafts, and in 2018 he instructed a copper weather vane class at the same school. His work is nationally collected and exhibited.
JIM MASTERSON
Foundry Apprentice Cassi Rebman is a sculptor and installation artist from Belle Plaine, MN. Her work explores how the external and the internal influence each other in the human experience. Specifically, she is interested in devices of human weakness such as our tactile nature, nostalgia and the psychological mechanisms through which we navigate the world. Rebman is a BFA recipient from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, an alumna of Franconia Sculpture Park, and a nominee for the International Sculpture Center's Outstanding Student achievement award.
CASSI REBMAN