 | This article relies largely or entirely on a single source .(April 2019) |
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| Location | Memphis, Tennessee, U.S. |
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| Founder | NOMM 060523.jpg |
| Website | www |
The National Ornamental Metal Museum, now called the Metal Museum, is a museum in Memphis, Tennessee. Founded by artist-blacksmith James Wallace, the museum is devoted to exhibitions of metalwork and public programs featuring metalsmiths.
The National Ornamental Metal Museum was originally a hospital. [1] The historic hospital first opened in 1884. This hospital's main use was treating civil war patients; however, it was also used as a scientific research center to explore curing yellow fever. [1]
Its estate originally comprised six buildings: a stable, a surgeon's house, two wards, a nurse's building, and an executive building. Only the nurse's building and executive building remain in their most original forms. The rest demolished in the New Deal Program by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in the 1930s. The two surviving buildings were moved with wagons and mules while other buildings were added to the estate. [1]
In the 1960s the hospital closed. According to the museum's website the Ownership was transferred to the City of Memphis by the Heritage and Conservation Act which eventually led to the Metal Museum gaining the lease.
Jim Wallace was hired to orchestrate the metals museum in about 1977. [2] After 1979, Lots of work and money has gone into renovation to make the Metal Museum an interactive place for learning. [1] About $2.5 million went into creating the Blacksmith's shop, the Lawler Foundry and the repairs and restoration lab, constructing a gazebo, and restoring the library. [1] Wallace led the museum for almost thirty years and with his guidance the museum became a place for artist residencies, an official museum, and a library. [1] He retired in 2007 after completing the renovations to pursue his own work. [1]
In May, 2022 the museum signed a lease on the site of the former Memphis College of Art. [3]
The museum has over 3000 items in its permanent collection, and also hosts travelling exhibitions. There is also a working smithy and foundry on site. In addition to displaying metalwork inside the museum they also offer hands-on classes in the museums workshops.
Every Fall, the Metal Museum holds a Repair Days Weekend. During this event, volunteer metalsmiths from across the country repair virtually any sort of metal object while the public watches.
A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut. Blacksmiths produce objects such as gates, grilles, railings, light fixtures, furniture, sculpture, tools, agricultural implements, decorative and religious items, cooking utensils, and weapons. There was an historical distinction between the heavy work of the blacksmith and the more delicate operation of a whitesmith, who usually worked in gold, silver, pewter, or the finishing steps of fine steel. The place where a blacksmith works is called variously a smithy, a forge or a blacksmith's shop.
Memphis College of Art (MCA) was a private art college in Memphis, Tennessee. It was in Overton Park, adjacent to the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. It offered Bachelor of Fine Arts, Master of Fine Arts, Master of Arts in Art Education and Master of Arts in Teaching degrees. However, it faced significant financial challenges and closed in the spring of 2020.
The National Civil Rights Museum is a complex of museums and historic buildings in Memphis, Tennessee; its exhibits trace the history of the civil rights movement in the United States from the 17th century to the present. The museum is built around the former Lorraine Motel, which was the site of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968; King died at St. Joseph's Hospital. Two other buildings and their adjacent property, also connected with the King assassination, have been acquired as part of the museum complex.
The Memphis Medical District is an area which was created to provide a central location for medical care, serving both Memphis and the Mid-South.
Albert Paley is an American modernist metal sculptor. Initially starting out as a jeweler, Paley has become one of the most distinguished and influential metalsmiths in the world. Within each of his works, three foundational elements stay true: the natural environment, the built environment, and the human presence. Paley is the first metal sculptor to have received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Institute of Architects. He lives and works in Rochester, New York with his wife, Frances.
The City of Memphis is located on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River in the southwest corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the regional hub for a tri-state area of Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee.
Tourism in Memphis includes the points of interest in Memphis, Tennessee such as museums, fine art galleries, and parks, as well as Graceland the Beale Street entertainment district, and sporting events.
John Rais is a designer, blacksmith and sculptor known for his architectural work, vessels, and furniture. Rais primarily works in steel as well as titanium, bronze, copper, stainless steel, and other materials. He is well known for his one-of-a-kind firescreens. Rais was born and raised in Burlington, Massachusetts, the youngest of seven children. Rais was introduced to blacksmithing in a sculpture class at the age of 18. He went to college at the Massachusetts College of Art, graduating in 1995, BFA Sculpture. After working at an architectural ironworks and a living history museum in Massachusetts, he decided to go to graduate school. Rais received his masters of fine arts degree from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1998, after which he worked at Peters Valley Craft Center as a department head. Rais was a department head of blacksmithing at Peter's Valley from 1998 to 2001. He has run his own design and metalsmithing studio since 1998. He now resides in Philadelphia, PA.
Mary Lee Hu is an American artist, goldsmith, and college level educator known for using textile techniques to create intricate woven wire jewelry.
The Nicholas Gotten House is located on 2969 Court Street in Bartlett, Tennessee, United States. It houses the Bartlett Museum, a local history museum operated by the Bartlett Historical Society.
L. Brent Kington was an art educator and visual artist who worked in blacksmithing and sculpture. Kington was a product of the studio craft movement in jewelry and hollowware. In 1969 he served as the first president of the Society of North American Goldsmiths. He is frequently hailed as the man responsible for the blacksmithing revival which took place in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Fred Fenster is a metalsmith and professor emeritus of the University of Wisconsin at Madison where he taught art and education. He is particularly known for his work in pewter, influencing generations of metalsmiths. Fenster was named a Fellow of the American Craft Council in 1995.
Gary Lee Noffke is an American artist and metalsmith. Known for versatility and originality, he is a blacksmith, coppersmith, silversmith, goldsmith, and toolmaker. He has produced gold and silver hollowware, cutlery, jewelry, and forged steelware. Noffke is noted for his technical versatility, his pioneering research into hot forging, the introduction of new alloys, and his ability to both build on and challenge traditional techniques. He has been called the metalsmith's metalsmith, a pacesetter, and a maverick. He is also an educator who has mentored an entire generation of metalsmiths. He has received numerous awards and honors. He has exhibited internationally, and his work is represented in collections around the world.
Tom Joyce is a sculptor and MacArthur Fellow known for his work in forged steel and cast iron. Using skills and technology acquired through early training as a blacksmith, Joyce addresses the environmental, political, and social implications of using iron in his work. Exhibited internationally since the 1980s, his work is included in 30-plus public collections in the U.S. and abroad. Joyce works from studios in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and since 2012, in Brussels, Belgium, producing sculpture, drawings, prints, photographs, and videos that reference themes of iron in the human body, iron in industry, and iron in nature.
Crosstown Concourse is a mixed use development in Memphis, Tennessee. It is located in the heart of the Crosstown neighborhood, so named for the intersecting trolley tracks at Cleveland and Poplar that connected Memphis commuters to the neighborhood in 1927. Crosstown Concourse itself is located at the intersection of North Parkway and N. Watkins Street and is the western terminus of the V&E Greenline.
Margret Craver was an American artist and arts educator. She was noted for her jewelry and holloware as well as her educational and technical manuals on metalwork.
Myra Mimlitsch-Gray is an American metalsmith, artist, critic, and educator living and working in Stone Ridge, New York. Mimlitsch-Gray's work has been shown nationally at such venues as the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Museum of the City of New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, and Museum of Arts and Design. Her work has shown internationally at such venues as the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Stadtisches Museum Gottingen, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, and is held in public and private collections in the U.S, Europe, and Asia.
Linda Threadgill is an American artist whose primary emphasis is metalsmithing. Her metal work is inspired by forms of nature and the interpretations she gleans from the intricate patterns it presents. She explores the foundation of nature to allude to nature and transform it into re-imagined, stylized plants forms.
Marilyn da Silva is an American sculptor, metalsmith, jeweler, and educator. She teaches and serves as a department head at the California College of the Arts in the San Francisco Bay Area. Da Silva has won numerous awards including honorary fellow by the American Craft Council (2007).
Zaporizhzhia Foundry and Mechanical Plant is an enterprise of the metallurgical industry in the city of Zaporizhzhia, of Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Ukraine.
