Kentucky Museum News

The Kentucky Museum is thrilled to announce their 10^th annual Hammer-In, an outdoor festival celebrating metal working traditions of Kentucky. Sponsored by Logan Aluminum, this year’s event will be held on October 11 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Kentucky Museum.

The festival is free and open to the public.

Beginning at 10 a.m., visitors will observe demonstrations of forge, tin smithing, aluminum pour, and basic forge skills. Interested guests can visit the WKU League of Sculptors booth to participate in making and creating their own aluminum pour to take home.

Featured Programs for 10^th Anniversary

In honor of the festival’s tenth anniversary, the Hammer-In will have a variety of special programs. This year will highlight two featured demonstrators: Jami Honey and Bruna D’Alessandro, both members of the Society of Inclusive Blacksmiths.

Jami Honey is a blacksmith and multidisciplinary artist who travels the world creating and teaching. They held artist residencies at the Metal Museum in Memphis, TN, and the Touchstone Center for Crafts in Pennsylvania.

An artist and metal sculptor, Bruna D’Alessandro was born in Italy, where she studied painting at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma, earning a Bachelor's in Painting and Master's in Multimedia and Technological Arts. Now living in Brooklyn, New York, she has completed artist residencies with Franconia Sculpture Park, The Steel Yard, and Salem Art Works, while showcasing in numerous exhibitions across the United States. Bruna is the co-founder of The Artist Gardener NYC and an instructor with The Art Students League of New York. Her works, "Ingredients for Dinner - Veggies" and "The Painter's Studio", are on view in Equal Temperament.

Additionally, at the 12 p.m. lunchtime, the Museum will hold a brief awards ceremony for the Equal Temperament exhibition. This national juried metalworking exhibition features the works of 32 artists across 20 states. Four awards will be presented in recognition of the most puzzling, most intricate, most functional, and most humorous/fantasy-like works. A fifth – the Kentucky Museum Purchase Award – will acquire one work for the Museum’s permanent collection.

The event will also feature forge, tinsmithing, basic forge skills, and aluminum pour demonstrations with the Kentucky Forge Council and WKU League of Sculptors. Visitors will have the opportunity to listen to narrative stages with featured demonstrators and Kentucky Forge Council members, meet metalworkers and artisans, and discover our region’s rich metalworking traditions, while learning about opportunities to become involved in the trade. Local food truck Cotton BBQ will be onsite.

Finally, the museum will be open to the public from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. with free admission and invites the public to view their recently opened Sonic Landscape and Equal Temperament exhibitions.

More information and the event schedule are provided at wku.edu/go/hammerin

Sponsors

Special thanks to our sponsor, Logan Aluminum. Established in 1985 and based in Russellville, Logan Aluminum is the largest single can sheet facility in North America, supplying over 45% of the North American can market and employing over 1,300 Kentuckians.

About the Kentucky Museum
The Kentucky Museum celebrates all aspects of southcentral Kentucky’s art, history and culture. “Kentuckians need to know Kentucky” was the Museum’s earliest conceptual framework, which took shape under WKU’s founding President, Dr. Henry Hardin Cherry. Today, the Museum is a steadfast educational campus partner helping to inspire innovation, elevate community and transform the lives of WKU students and the region. To learn more, visit wku.edu/kentuckymuseum/

For more information, contact Tiffany Isselhardt at (270) 745-3369.