Dates for the 2025 Spring Conference have been scheduled for May 30th through June 1, 2025 at the Cowlitz County Fairgrounds/Event Center – NWBA Mentoring Center in Longview, WA.
Featured Demonstrators on Friday and Saturday will include Ellen Durkan from Delaware and Max Randolf from California with John Paul serving as Sunday’s “Hot Tips” Demonstrator. Full details regarding the Conference Schedule and planned events will be in the upcoming Hot Iron News publication and posted here on the web.
Ellen Durkan is an artist blacksmith from Wilmington, Delaware. She creates wearable “Forged Fashion” art that she presents through performance runway shows. She received her Graduate Degree in Fine Arts in sculpture and then got into blacksmithing and has been working in metal for around 15 years. For Ellen’s Spring Conference workshop she will be offering a wearable piece that will sit around the neck and shoulders, participants will model it to themselves! Learn more about Ellen here: https://www.ellendurkan.com/home.html
Max Randolph, a California artsmith, lives in Paso Robles and runs his studio workshop alongside his wife Casey.
Since childhood, Max has been a force of destructive and creative nature. Moving parts and intricate components were constantly taken apart to see how they worked. Daily stacks of illustrations littered every corner of his room. To this day, his obsession to create has only grown. What started in his early teens as ordinary fabrications, have now turned into massive moving constructs that challenge the viewer’s sense of what is truly possible. From gigantic hand-cut gearworks that actuate huge rolling doors, to flowing steel sculptures, Max strives to share his magical internal world with his exterior world.
The magnitude of creativity and years of self-taught practice bring depth, movement and lifeforce to each piece he creates. Max’s art continues to evolve as he expands the capabilities and expectations around what it means to be a blacksmith and an artist. Learn more about Max here: https://www.max-randolph-studios.com
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