Ken Schmidt

Even in my childhood I enjoyed making things; usually bringing disparate things together, or creating an assembly of found objects celebrating the shapes of nature and place. Around the age of ten, my father bought me a small bandsaw, and I would cut out shapes and characters and paint them. This was about the same time I began to help out in the family hardware store - a hardware store in the true sense of the word, with oiled creaky wood floors; the smell of rope and paint spills, and the never ending supply of hinges, chains, building supplies, and power tools.

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From early on, I was learning about hand tools, fasteners, electrical supplies, plumbing, and farm equipment. It wasn’t until working on a Master’s degree in art education that it all came together in a Metalsmithing class, and I was hooked! The ability to use my mind, hands, tools, metals, fire, and other materials to make meaning from the myriad of shapes and objects all around me was addictive and fulfilling. And to this day it is easy to lose myself in the magic and mystery of the artist’s work.

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Most of my working life has been as a college/university art professor with the Concordia University System. I have served as an art professor and as an administrator in Michigan, Nebraska, and Texas. I am now retired, and working in my studio full time in Aurora, Colorado.