Photo by Michael Donahue // Buy this photo
"Maybe I was a blank slate for blacksmithing, so I didn’t have any of these preconceived notions," says Mary Catherine Floyd, an artist and blacksmith apprentice at the National Ornamental Metal Museum.
In high school, Mary Catherine Floyd had her own look. “I was dressed really extreme, I guess I would say,” she said. “But it wasn’t like trench coats or anything like that. It was more like completely vintage. I’d wear all my mother’s clothes.”
She learned to sew in high school. “I remember going to my grandmother’s house and making curtains. My grandmother would make me doll clothes. So, I guess that definitely influenced me. I just love textures.
Photo by Michael Donahue
"Maybe I was a blank slate for blacksmithing, so I didn’t have any of these preconceived notions," says Mary Catherine Floyd, an artist and blacksmith apprentice at the National Ornamental Metal Museum.
"Vessell II" by Mary Catherine Floyd. Showing at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens' "Metal in Memphis" exhibit.
“I really like costume design. I took one class in college in costume design, and my teacher was like, ‘Why aren’t you doing this?’ I sort of am.”
A blacksmith, Floyd, 27, now stitches and weaves steel. When she’s not pounding iron to help make fences or other pieces at the National Ornamental Metal Museum, where she is a blacksmith apprentice, Floyd experiments with her steel sculptures. Her work is on view through March 18 in “Metal in Memphis” at Dixon Gallery and Gardens, 4339 Park. She and fellow blacksmith Jeannie Tomlinson-Saltmarsh, whose work also is in the show, will discuss their work at noon Wednesday at the gallery.
A native of Garner, N.C., Floyd got a track and cross-country scholarship to Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C., where she majored in art. “I kind of fell in love with fiber arts there, and I guess that related to my sewing back in high school.”
Describing an early college piece, Floyd said she used thread to attach stuffed fiber tubes to holes she had made in a piece of rusty steel. She then covered the piece with mud and wax. “That year it won the faculty award at the art expo.”
In 2005, Floyd moved to Bucyrus, Mo., to study blacksmithing with Charlie McKinney. “I had never done any blacksmithing before. He was really honest and a really great teacher. Maybe I was a blank slate for blacksmithing, so I didn’t have any of these preconceived notions. I was there and he saw that I worked hard, and I think that he appreciated that in me, so we got along really well.”
Floyd has great memories of McKinney, who recently died. “We laughed a lot, and we liked the same music. We would listen to this great old country music station. He kind of introduced me to Kris Kristofferson and Glenn Campbell.”
Floyd’s fascination with blacksmithing was “being able to build something so quickly. I guess that makes me more of a welder than a blacksmith. But I love that I can make something and it’s strong. It’s so empowering to be able to build something that somebody can stand on or put all their weight against.”
And, she added, “It’s physical and I love that. It is hard work. And I can come in at the end of the day and be like, ‘Shoo! I put so many hours in the shop, and I feel great, and I’m gonna go to sleep now.’”
A friend told her to apply for the artist residency position at the National Ornamental Metal Museum. In 2008, she got the position. “It’s a Mecca for metalsmiths. Great energy here always.”
She’d been to the museum for Repair Days, so she was familiar with Memphis. “I still love Memphis. The art scene is so welcoming. And it’s not just artists. It’s ballerinas and musicians and opera people. It’s just this really nice jumble of different artists all influencing each other.”
Floyd decided she would stitch metal for her resident artist project. “I made a dye for the press that corrugated it (the metal). I punched all these little holes in there and then drilled them out with a long drill bit so they were all connected. Then I slid a piece of metal through those holes (and) I flattened it back down so it was like a running stitch. In and out. It’s not too hard. It was just really time consuming, and I broke a lot of drill bits.”
Floyd thought about actually making clothing out of metal. “Why not? There’s some really cool material. It’s like really super-fine woven stainless steel. It’s material. You can fold it, and it keeps that shape.”
Floyd created the moveable metal hoop skirt that Stephanie Hom wore in one of the dances at last year’s Ballet Memphis “Connections: Food” fundraiser.
Floyd’s metal sewing includes quilt pieces made out of steel. “I just went out in the scrap pile and grabbed a bunch of scraps. I’ve been looking at these textile books and I was like, ‘Oh, quilts! Duh. Scraps. Duh.’ And then I cut them out in shapes. It’s just a log cabin pattern.”
Floyd wants to do more with her stitched metal. “I think that this texture, this appearance that I’ve created is fairly original.”
And, she added, “I have actually thought about trying to figure out a way to take that texture and do it in large scale. It would be so cool to just cover a whole building. The whole surface of a building.”
Contact Michael Donahue at 529-2797, or e-mail donahue@commercialappeal.com.
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