Fusing science and culture through metalsmithing

As the metal artist in residence and technical instructor in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE), Rhea Vedro operates in a synthesis of realms that broadens and enriches the student experience at MIT.

“Across MIT,” she says, “people in the arts, humanities, and sciences come together, and as soon as there’s opportunity to talk, sparks fly with all of the cross-pollination that is possible. It’s a rich place to be, and an exciting opportunity to work with our students in that way.”

In 2022, when Vedro read the job description for her current position at MIT, she says it resonated deeply with her interests and experiences. An outgrowth of MIT’s strong tradition of “mens et manus” (“mind and hand”), the position fused seamlessly with her own background.

“It was like I had written it myself. I couldn’t believe the position existed,” Vedro says.

Vedro’s relationship with metals had begun early. Even as a child growing up in Madison, Wisconsin, she collected minerals and bits of metal — and was in heaven when her godmother in New York City would take her to the Garment District, where she delightedly dug through wholesale bins of jewelry elements.

“I believe that people are called to different mediums,” she says. “Artists are often called to work with wood or clay or paper. And while I love all of those, metal has always been my home.”

After earning a master of fine arts in metals at the State University of New York at New Paltz, Vedro combined her art practice over the years with community work, as well as with an academic pursuit into metalsmithing history. “Through material culture, anthropology, and archeology, you can trace civilizations by how they related to this material.”

Vedro teaches classes 3.093 (Metalsmithing: Objects and Power), 3.095 (Introduction to Metalsmithing), and 4:A02 (DesignPlus: Exploring Design), where students learn techniques like soldering, casting, and etching, and explore metalsmithing through a cultural lens.

“In my class, we look at objects like the tool, the badge, the ring, the crown, the amulet, armor in relationship to the body and power,” Vedro says.

Vedro also supports the lab sections of class 3.094 (Materials in Human Experience), an experiential investigation into early techniques for developing cementitious materials and smelting iron, with an eye toward the future of these technologies.

Explaining her own artistic journey, which has taken her all over the world, Vedro says the “through-line” of her practice involves the idea of transformation, via the physical process of her hands-on work as a metalsmith, a fascination with materiality, and her community work to “transform lives through the art of making something.”

Such transformation is demonstrated in her ongoing commission by the City of Boston Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture, entitled Amulet, which invited the public to community workshops, and to Vedro’s “Workbench” positioned by the waterfront in East Boston, to use metal tools of the trade. Each participant made their own mark on sheets of metal, asked to act with an intention or wish for safe passage of a loved one or for one’s own journey. Vedro will fashion the sheets, bearing the “wishmarks” of so many community members into several 16-to-17-foot birds, positioning them to stand guard at Boston City Hall Plaza.

At MIT, students come to the DMSE’s Merton C. Flemings Materials Processing Laboratory to work on creative projects in fine metals and steel, and also to craft parts for highly technical research in a wide range of fields, from mechanical engineering to aeronautics and astronautics.

“Students will come proposing to make a custom battery housing, a coil for a project going into outer space, a foundry experiment, or to etch and polish one crystal of aluminum,” Vedro says. “These are very specific requests that are not artistic in their origin and rely upon the hands-on metalsmithing of my team, including Mike Tarkanian [DMSE senior lecturer], James Hunter, [DMSE lecturer], Shaymus Hudson [DSME technical instructor], and Christopher Di Perna, [DSME technical instructor].”

Whatever the students’ inspiration, Vedro says she is struck by how motivated they are to do their best work — even despite the setbacks and time required that are part of developing a new skill.

“Everyone here is intensely driven,” she says, adding that many students, perhaps because of their familiarity with the scientific process, “are really good at taking quote-unquote failures as part of their learning process.”

Throughout their exploration in the lab, otherwise known as the Forge/Foundry, many students discover the power of working with their hands.

“There is a zone you get into, where you are becoming one with what you’re doing and lose track of time, and you are only paying attention to how material is behaving under your hand,” Vedro says.

Sometimes the zone produces not only a fine piece of metalwork, but an inspiration about something unrelated, such as a new approach to a research project.

“It frees up the mind, just like when you’re sleeping and you process things you studied the night before,” Vedro says. “You can be working with your hands on something, and many other ideas come together.”

Asked whether 15 years ago she would have thought she’d be working at MIT, Vedro says, “Oh, no. My professional life has been such an incredible braid of different experiences. It’s a reminder to stay true to your unique journey, because you can be like me — in a place I would never have anticipated, where I feel energized every day to come in and see what will cross my path.”