CCC: craftsperson commission connection
Are you looking for an artist to create a custom piece for you?
The CCC: Craftsperson Commission Connection is maintained by CAFAC as a referral resource for commission opportunities. CAFAC invites artists to submit a simple portfolio of their skills and body of work, which we then use to connect artists to the commission requests we receive.
Scroll down to learn more about the artists in the CCC. Then, when you’re requesting a project, you can select artists whose work aligns with your vision and we’ll forward your request to them.
Thank you for helping us support artists!
Artist bio/statement: Jenn Angell is a visual artist currently based in Minneapolis. She received a BFA in ceramics from University of Wisconsin-River Falls in 2017. She makes work about the physicality of psychological experiences, how we process emotion, and how those experiences are carried with us. She is inspired by the human body, psychology, medical illustration, and the clutter inside her head.
Artist bio/statement: Jess Bergman Night has degrees in both Studio Arts (Summa Cum Laude) and Art History from the University of Minnesota. She has been instructing and experimenting with the metal casting process for several years. Jess delights in sharing the love of casting with others and growing the casting community through instruction at CAFAC and using her bicycle transported traveling foundry called Pedal to the Metal.
Inspired by community and our natural world, Jess employs many different 2D and 3D artistic mediums to fulfill project ideas with specific specialty in community engaged metal casting techniques. Jess also created and works with her portable cargo bicycle transported art engagement and fabrication tool, Pedal to the Metal: Traveling Foundry.
Brad Buxton
Mediums/skill set: Welding/metal fabrication, blacksmithing, metal casting
Website/social media: acmeprojectshop.com
Artist bio/statement: I began my blacksmith/metalwork journey in 2009, taking classes through the Guild of Metalsmiths, North House Folk School and with nationally recognized blacksmiths. I am currently working out of my shop, Acme Project Shop making metal sculpture, bottle openers, campfire cooking tools and other utilitarian pieces. I’m also teaching copper chasing / repousse & blacksmith classes at Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center in Minneapolis.
I use the qualities of metal especially hot metal to bend, twist conform and shape like clay, and use these characteristics to create sculptural and functional / practical art using forging techniques and processes. My artistic vision and practice is to create organic forms that mimic nature and explore flowing sculptural forms using qualities of very hot metal to forge and shape steel creating sculptural and functional art.
As a lifelong learner I am exploring bronze casting and copper chasing arts, adding to my skill set.
Becca Cerra
Mediums/skill set: Blacksmithing, welding/metal fabrication
Website/social media: beccacerra.com | Instagram | Facebook
Artist bio/statement: Becca Cerra is a Queer, Female Artist living with Physical Disabilities and Mental Illness. Each of these identities inform the work she creates.
Becca provides one-of-a-kind creations that combine traditional craft practices with contemporary art-making approaches to imagine something truly unique and memorable. She uses blacksmithing and welding techniques to create small housewares and home goods like candle holders, bottle openers, hooks, etc. as well as larger custom functional sculptures like railings, arbors, tables, fireplace screens, and more. In addition to metalwork, she offers abstract ink, watercolor, and oil paintings.
Rodney Dixon
Mediums/skill set: Welding & metal fabrication
Artist statement/bio: I came to metal art looking for an avocation that was antithetical to my 30+ years working as a social worker. As an African American male who grew up in the South during the 60’s, art education was not something that was ever on my radar. Later in life, I began my training at MCTC and then continued with Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center when it opened. My style of fabrication has evolved from abstract art pieces mostly made from found/recycled objects to a strong interest in creating unique yard art that suggests the arts and crafts style.
I live in a South Minneapolis bungalow with my partner, our two cats (B.B. King and Lucille) and a collection of metal art pieces nestled in our eclectic gardens.
Heather Doyle
Mediums/skill set: Welding/metal fabrication, blacksmithing, enameling, public art, community art
Website/social media: industryelle.com
Artist bio/statement: Heather Doyle has been inspired by fire as a creative and empowering tool since her first industrial arts class in high school. After working in industry as a welder, fabricator, and product designer, she became a fire arts educator in 2006 and developed a new sculptural welding and blacksmithing program at Minneapolis Community & Technical College. She is a founder and now serves as Artistic Director at CAFAC, where she continues her work as an educator and mentor in sculptural welding, blacksmithing, enameling and public art. She served on the Minneapolis Arts Commission for four years and continues to contribute to the creative sector through educational partnerships, sculpture fabrications, and emerging artist mentorship.
Heather's sculpture and metal fabrications represent a dichotomy ranging from organic flowing forms rendered through ancient craft techniques to precise fabrication through the use of modern technology. Her body of work ranges from private commissions to public art installations.
Work with Heather on: Conservation and repair of broken or damaged sculptures or other precious heirlooms. Heather enjoys researching and mending pieces in a manner that disappears entirely or barring that option, adds to the story of a work.
Tamiko French
Mediums/skill set: Jewelry, metal fabrication, public art, community art
Artist bio/statement: Tamiko French's artistic journey has been a captivating fusion of disciplines since 2011. Beginning as a dancer and choreographer, her creative path evolved into the realm of jewelry making, captivating diverse communities around the world. Tamiko's creations beautifully harmonize her deep affinity for science, nature, and their mystical interplay, infusing each of her services with this enchanting synergy.
Since 2011, Tamiko French has been a multidisciplinary creative with a background in dance performance and choreography. Additionally, creating jewelry and sharing her gift with communities abroad has been a sincere passion that is now her full time business. Her love for science, nature, and the magic between them is carefully synergized with each service she delivers. Whether it be crystal consultation, crystal healing, custom functional jewelry, or a unique sound bath, you can discover something that illuminates your soul. Her vibrationally charged work has been featured at Rituals in Midtown Global Market, at various pop up shops, and at Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center where she is a teacher and welding artist. In 2020, she added sound healing to her array of services in response to the rising needs of safe calm space after the murder of George Floyd, and the homeless displacement where many volunteers and homeless needed some form of calm affirming her own healing journey.
She has been accredited with the International Natural Healers Association and has been featured at SALT Salon and Spa, Abbott Hospital and Mother Baby Center, One Yoga, and Watershed Spa, Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center, and George Floyd Square. Her current and future projects include “Healing House” sound bath music events, “Movement as Language” dance and healing events, “Youth Sound” healing events, “Corporate Reframe/Relax” sound healing sessions, and “Dancing Sound” movement meditation session events.
Pete Gierzynski
Mediums/skill set: Blacksmithing, jewelry, metal casting, welding & metal fabrication, screenprinting, woodworking, concrete, plaster
Website/social media: transmutemetalworks.com | Instagram
Artist bio/statement: Pete runs his own metalworking business in south Minneapolis, where he crafts custom commissions using various metals and woods to create unique pieces of art and functional furniture.
I believe it is a delicate balance to create a thing that has a refined yet handmade character, especially in a world that prioritizes low-cost, fast, and flawless products. The process of creation is often messy and unrefined, which I fully embrace. I lean into creating pieces that show the signs of the hand that worked them as a way to make the object more relatable, approachable, and warm.
I am inspired by punk culture, brutalism, avant garde and music composition, which I studied in college. Interestingly, what drew me to music composition were the same concepts that drew me to blacksmithing: you start with these singular sounds, these basic shapes, and then get to sculpt with them. Similarly, I am drawn to both spiky shapes and sounds–the tension of a sharp turn, a dramatic angle or twist. In a world with so much noise, I am captivated by art forms that hold my attention, that give me goosebumps, that make my heart race. Creating bold, striking work allows me to aesthetically do the same.
Paula and Larry Jensen
Mediums/skill set: Blacksmithing, jewelry, metal casting, welding & metal fabrication, public art
Website/social media: eartheagleforge.com | Facebook | Instagram
Artist bio/statement: Some compasses point North, and some point to creativity. My compass led to the creative side. Not the most easy path to follow, but the choice to follow the arts was a no brainer for me. I started my creative journey in the 1990's. Like many artists I began by experimenting with two dimensional art, doing sketching and painting. These mediums are still important to my artistic development, but the three dimensional work has over shadowed most of my earlier work.
After meeting and marrying my husband Larry, he began to teach me metalwork and I moved into three dimensional sculpture and functional art. We started our business Earth Eagle Forge LLC in 2001. With Larry by my side we use a variety of traditional blacksmithing and sculpture methods to create functional pieces as well as sculptural, or combine sculptural with the functional.
Our job as custom artists is to help others acquire pieces they desire in their lives by designing and creating with them in mind. We take this job seriously and feel honored and privileged when someone commissions us to create something unique for their lives.
Christopher E. Harrison
Mediums/skill set: Enameling, metal tooling, welding, public art
Website/social media: harrisonartstudio.net
Artist bio/statement: I’m a visual artist, public artist and designer who maintains my artistic practice through my studio in N. Mpls. I am an arts educator at the Walker Art Center as well. I use biomorphic shapes in bold colors to create abstract environments and figures.
Leann E. Johnson
Mediums/skill set: Jewelry, hand-glazed custom tile for residential installation
Website/social media: www.lea-way.com | Instagram
Artist bio/statement: Leann E. Johnson is an independent artist who creates a variety of art: as a graphic designer and illustrator, and as a tile artist. Her design clients include local and national companies and businesses (Coloplast, Easterseals). Her illustrations have been published in The New York Times and The Saint Paul Almanac. Leann’s tile work includes hand-glazed original tiles for interior home installation, as well as handmade and hand-glazed ceramic jewelry and products for home decor.
Leann’s artistic vision is to help people make a space for themselves, where they can “leave their armor at the door”—to relax and re-energize away from the rest of the world. Why not surround yourself with things that create calm and affirmation?
Gail Katz-James
Mediums/skill set: Steel, mixed-media, enamel, sculpture, textiles
Website/social media: gailkatzjames.com | Instagram
Artist bio/statement: Gail Katz-James is a Minneapolis artist who transforms steel, wire and recycled objects into sculptures for interior and exterior spaces in Minnesota and the region. Recently, she created Owl’s Perspective, an outdoor Owl’s head made of steel and willow, and Flour Sack Rack, a colorful enameled sculptural bike rack inspired by the history of flour milling for the City of Minneapolis.
Inspired by animals, plants and architecture, I create playful sculptures out of steel, glass, wire, hardware and found objects. Starting with long, straight steel rods, I create armatures by bending and welding them, manipulating them like pliable fiber. I focus on the transformation of humble materials into surfaces and structures, rooted in textile traditions like quilting, weaving, lacemaking and knotless netting.
Over the last twelve years, I have learned metal fabrication. After priming and spray painting, each armature returns to my "clean" fiber studio where I build up surfaces using wire, hardware and other elements. I attach additional materials by piercing or drilling them and "sewing" them onto the welded forms.
Recently, I have been experimenting with new materials and techniques to make my sculptures suitable for permanent public settings and outdoors. These include welding large areas of plasma cut sheet steel (instead of strands of hardware) and the use of stainless-steel rod, instead of wire, as well as handmade glass beads. In addition, I always include an interactive component, such as a small door to open, an engineered view through openings in the work, or moving parts.
Kathleen Kvern
Mediums/skill set: Encaustic painting
Website/social media: kathleenkvern.com | Instagram
Artist bio/statement: I mainly work in encaustic and mixed media. I’m interested in an ongoing dialogue between wax and collage – using tools to create marks, using fire to fuse, layering on bits of paper, using charcoal or oil sticks to draw, and making more marks. I use a blow torch to paint. Melting the wax creates distortion, loss, and imperfection – encaustic painting involves unpredictable outcomes.
Lynn Larson
Mediums/skill set: Welding & metal fabrication, digital and acrylic art
Website/social media: jadedwelder.com | Instagram
Artist bio/statement:
I love working with steel-bending and shaping it and contrasting that medium with digital or acrylic painted art.
BFA Minneapolis College of Art & Design. Window designer in Minneapolis, New Orleans. Graphic designer in Chicago area and Cincinnati, then back to Minneapolis as a graphic designer and welder of strange steel art.
Kristin Lebben
Mediums/skill set: Bronze, steel and stone sculptures including bronze casting and welding, steel welding and fabrication
Website/social media: kristinlebben.com | Instagram
Artist bio/statement: I am a sculptor residing in the greater Minneapolis St. Paul area. Mainly working in bronze, steel and stone, my work is both abstract and figurative.
In my sculpture, I explore positive and negative spaces and how they inform the piece and make it more dynamic. Another element I enjoy employing is rhythm since I find it can pull the observer into the sculpture. As a dedicated student of design and composition, I am continually playing with these elements to create more compelling pieces.
With my figurative work, I like to capture a moment, a telling gesture, something that imparts a feeling. When creating abstract pieces, I enjoy the freedom to explore how different elements create different experiences for the viewer. I also enjoy sliding along the scale of abstraction to find what degree of abstraction I want the piece to develop. I find that the more abstract the piece is, the more of the artist there is in the work.
As an artist who likes to push viewers, I am also interested in how both the form and materials used in the sculpture impact the beholder. For instance, living in the Midwest, I have found that people here will more readily accept an abstract carved in stone over one in bronze. I find this dynamic fascinating.
Kristin holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Studio Art from Lawrence University in Appleton, WI and an AAS degree in Commercial Photography from Hennepin Technical College in Eden Prairie, MN where she was a member of Phi Theta Kappa, a national academic honor society. She has also studied under sculptors Nick Legeros and Heidi Hoy.
Jeanine Malec | Nest and Tessellate
Mediums/skill set: Enameling, jewelry, community art, folk art, ceramics
Website/social media: www.nestandtessellate.art | Instagram
Artist bio/statement: Nest and Tessellate explores magical symbols, pattern language and seasonal crafts derived from traditional folk arts. My practice seeks to connect with ancestral art forms, reimagine folk charms and build relationships within community around these interests. Symbols charged with intention have been used for millennia as agents of healing and protection on textiles, buildings and household tools. Gathering precedents from around the Midwest and beyond; I hope to draw parallels between diverse sources, identify shared meanings and with help from collaborators, develop new visual lexicons reflective of current needs. The goal is to create a magical folk art for our time.
I am a Minnesota-born mother of three residing in Minneapolis, who comes from a lifelong passion for magic, making and ecology. In 2015, my Daughter was diagnosed with an acute language processing condition, necessitating the use of signs and symbols at home. Adapting to circumstance, I began studying systems of visual communication in craft. Originating in sacred relationship with place, language is inherently magical. Sigils, hexes and patterns precede literary traditions, acting on subconscious faculties to gently bring about change – like herbal medicine for the eyes.
Active in the Twin Cities art community for over 20 years, I studied at the College of Visual Arts and hold an MFA in Ecological Architecture from Vesper College. Service work includes helping to organize Powderhorn Empty Bowls, Art Shape Mammoth and A Conspiracy of Strange Girls Art Collective. Things I’m proud to have done include a solo show at the Phipps Center for Art (2010) and residencies at The Future (2018) and Pillsbury House Theater (2019). Winning the Spirit of Powderhorn award for a participatory art project presented at the Powderhorn Art Fair (2019), and facilitating a talisman making workshop at the Weisman Art Museum for the opening of Abracadabra, Harriet Bart’s retrospective exhibition (2020).
Brighton McCormick
Mediums/skill set: Welding & metal fabrication, metal casting, public art, community art
Website/social media: brightonmccormick.com | Facebook
Artist statement/bio: I am a maker. A maker of objects, images, spaces, sounds, reflections, sentences and mistakes. My heavily material based practice incorporates handcrafted objects, 2D images, as well as sound and video typically resulting in installed environments. I often combine various mediums, but the resulting works live in the domain of sculpture. Utilizing experimental casting techniques for metal and clay I fossilize memories and reflections of everyday moments and formed ideologies. Philosophical inquiry guides my studio decisions. Drawing heavily on my personal experiences of American culture I create atmospheres for the viewer to reflect and question ideas about society and themselves.
Wisdom of a process gained over time, development of a muscle memory, and an intimacy with a tool or material changes the source and scope of knowledge. Through this way of working and learning both the head and hand are engaged in the development of tacit knowledge. Within my practice I’m processing how the marks and memories of our personal pasts are insidious to who we become. I’m seeking to understand how individual identity development has led to increasing polarization. By creating or recontextualizing furniture and other domestic objects my work reconsiders our remembered histories. Remnants of process and everyday items are repurposed and function as an archive of what they once were and what they once meant. In the making of craft objects historically viewed as women’s work through processes typically assigned to male labor, I question both the place of skilled craft and gendered work in our modern society.
Artist bio/statement: I am a nature-loving, rock-collecting, plant hoarder. I have dabbled in jewelry making in one form or another for most of my life, and years ago, back in college, I fell in love with welding and fire arts. Combining my love for fire arts with my love for jewelry, stones, and nature has been a true inspiration and joy for me. I think of jewelry as wearable art. I am deeply inspired by textures and shapes found in nature, and by natural stones and crystals. I work primarily with sterling silver, fine silver, pmc, and copper.
I am a teacher, wellness practitioner, and artist from South Minneapolis, MN. I weave together a life and a career of creativity and wellness. I am a licensed massage therapist, aerial yoga teacher, and silversmith. I am a wife, dog mom, and stoker at Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center.
I dabble in: Plant medicine, herbalism, metal arts, silversmithing, photography, and a smattering of other art mediums.
Juan Jose Palacios
Mediums/skill set: Welding/Metal Fabrication, public art, concrete, plaster, wood construction
Website/social media: Facebook
Artist statement/bio: In retrospect my art education has been a tour of how things are made, the creation of things as a functional layer wrapped with a sense of meaning. My enjoyment of utilizing materials from a wide range of sources and purposes has led me to an unexpected world of delight ranging from the creation of French pastries that lead to decorative plasterwork and how it applies in classical architecture; kitchen design that introduced me to architecture, construction management and historic preservation. Being a son of a seamstress was my foundation to human form sculpture all together with an aspiration for technical brilliance and craftsmanship. Being brought up with fashion magazines at home, they displayed new, and updated and exciting; and seeded the images of industrial design. The construction of challenging forms and ways to bring meaning to a figure is always the value to a design.
Over time with further exposure to new ideas, other designers and my personal growth, art concepts became more clear; observing objects that are well made have a combination of beauty, clever execution, a language that at times are deceptive and at best makes us explore a deeper truth as the unraveling of a sweet onion that brings ideas with emotions, make us want to talk and experience each layer. I take extreme satisfaction by creating one of a kind pieces from putting together the client’s needs with a design and culminating with a three dimensional object.
Tai Salisbury
Mediums/skill set: Welding & metal fabrication, metal casting, jewelry
Website/social media: www.salibenne.com | Facebook
Artist statement/bio: Like all of the really good things in my life, I stumbled and sprawled face down in the world of jewelry arts, lapidary, goldsmithing and all things shimmery. Almost all my skill has been developed on-the-job, what what a job that is!!! My jam is working with customers to create emotional, sentimental, meaningful pieces that embody memories, experiences, joys, triumphs, loves and losses. My style can range from classic to eclectic, my preference being creating balance with asymmetry. My skills also include shaping stones or keepsakes, wire wrapping, metal fabrication and casting.
Tai has worked in the jewelry industry for 15 years, starting with wire working, moving into custom lapidary (stone cutting) and then teaching jewelry making skills while working as a bench jeweler. She works mostly in gold and silver with or without precious and semi precious gems. She is currently self employed, still teaching jewelry making classes and taking custom commission on special pieces. She lives in Richfield with her wife, step kids, 2 cats and the best dog in the world.
Pete Segar
Mediums/skill set: Welding/metal fabrication, public art, community art, concrete, mixed media, fire-based wood treatments (Shou Shugi Ban, Lichtenburg), fountains/water features, furniture
Website/social media: www.metalcraftersus.com | Facebook
Artist statement/bio: While several smaller works have been created, I am focusing primarily on large scale commissioned and public sculpture. Original works include steel, stone, concrete and other materials hand crafted into wall hangings, indoor metal sculpture, furniture, and outdoor sculpture. While both natural and abstract themes are explored, all sculptures share a predominantly monochromatic style that emphasizes the natural beauty of steel, and highlights features through dramatic shapes and textures.
I have devoted most of my adult life to engineering and product development. I was inspired by my uncle’s metal sculptures as a child, began metal art as a hobby 14 years ago, and have continued learning and refining my craft. In 2018, following a second bout of cancer, I founded MetalCrafters to create custom commissioned sculptures professionally. I work both at TC Maker in Minneapolis (a shared community shop), and in my own studio in Shell Lake WI.
During my first decade of amateur work, I explored several types of sculptures (wall art, table sculptures, furniture), and market approaches (art fairs, internet, direct sales). Since starting Metalcrafters, my work has increased in complexity and scale, and I have received great response from my customers, the general public, and an increasingly growing network of artists. Through this formative phase, clarity has emerged and my future focus is on public placements of large-scale sculptures.
Shelly Thrall
Mediums/skill set: Jewelry
Website/social media: shellythrall.com | Instagram | Facebook
Artist statement/bio: I found my love for creating jewelry while living in New Zealand, inspired by the flora, fauna and rugged west coast beaches of the North Island. Finding my way back home to Minnesota, my inspiration comes from canoeing in the Boundary Waters and walking among the urban gardens in Minneapolis.
I love to mix sterling silver, copper, brass as well as found objects and semiprecious stones to make jewelry that is meaningful to me. In many instances I like my designs to look organic and well worn. I often leave the marks and imperfections made during the hand-building process to enrich the finished pieces. I use fine jeweler's sandpaper and various patinas to create a charcoal effect on the finished piece. All my designs are made from recycled metals that have a low impact on the planet, age beautifully, and last for generations.
Madison Vail
Mediums/skill set: Welding & metal fabrication, community art, public art, mixed media
Website/social media: Instagram
Artist statement/bio: I have a diverse set of skills in metal work and other art disciplines. I am pretty creative and can figure most things out and would love to work with you to make your dreams come true. I can make things that are square, level, and plumb or I can make super fun sculptures and everything in between. If you're unsure of exactly what you want I can work with you to make a blueprint. Let's have some fun creating things!!!
I graduated from the welding program at Dunwoody in 2018. My first job was building an installment for MOMA PS1 in New York. After that I joined the Millwrights Union and worked in so many different crazy places doing welding and so much more. It go to be really hard on my body and very demanding so I went to a custom fab shop for a little while until I realized that I wanted to do more fulfilling art related projects. Now I am doing freelance work and am so much happier.
Sergey Vaynshenk
Mediums/skill set: Blacksmithing, Welding & metal fabrication
Website/social media: Instagram
Artist statement/bio: Sergey Vaynshenk's blacksmithing journey ignited in 2021 during his inaugural class, where the first swing of the hammer captivated him. Since that transformative moment, he has passionately called CAFAC his creative home, dedicating himself to the art of blacksmithing. Sergey's story is one of skill development and a deep-seated commitment to the craft, blossoming from a single class into a fervent creative pursuit.
Focusing on creating practical objects for everyday use, such as ornate garden trellises and utensils for eating and cooking, he is driven by a desire to share his knowledge and passion for blacksmithing. He believes that the preservation and proliferation of traditional crafts are vital for fostering creativity, resilience, and a deeper connection to our cultural heritage. Through his dedication to teaching and collaboration, Sergey seeks to inspire the next generation of artisans. He encourages them to embrace the beauty and craftsmanship of blacksmithing, ensuring that this timeless art form continues to thrive.