Collection: Nash Quinn

Nash Quinn is a metalsmith who specializes in pattern-formed enameled vessels and small-scale mechanisms.  Originally from Wyoming, he received his BFA from the University of Wyoming, and his MFA from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania.  He works with a variety of traditional materials, including copper, enamel, and sterling silver, and his work is about joy - the simple joy he experiences in design, process, and craft.  He hopes that the objects he makes can carry that joy, and transmit a bit of it to others. At HCCC, he plans to explore the boundaries of the pattern-formed vessel format. 

Nash teaches, lectures, and exhibits his work at craft schools, jewelry academies, and universities nationwide.  He was a professor of jewelry and metalsmithing at Rowan University and Munson Williams Proctor Arts Institute, and has taught workshops at Peters Valley School of Craft, Creative Side Jewelry Academy, and Haystack Mountain School of Craft, among many others.  His work has been featured in exhibitions including 40 Under 40: The Next Generation at the National Ornamental Metal Museum, Imagine Peace Now, created by Boris Bally, as well as Philadelphia: Then and Now 1950-2019 and RINGS!, both organized by Helen Drutt. 

Notes from the Artist

My work is about joy.  It’s about the joy of a bead of solder slowly being drawn into a silver seam, coaxed along its journey by the gentle flame of a torch.  It’s about the joy of a handmade mechanism that clicks into place with audible precision.  It’s about the joy of a sugary layer of enamel trading molecules with its copper substrate as it fuses into glass.  I find joy in the careful fitment of complex parts, in unexpected errors and their eventual solutions, and in the slow realization of ambitious ideas.

I want everything I make, be it a piece of functional jewelry, an absurd mechanical toy, or an elegant enameled vessel, to be an affirmation of joy.  In the end, I hope the objects I make can hold and carry the gratification I receive in making them, and transmit a bit of it to others.

www.nashquinn.com