Sloss Metal Arts Crew
Virginia Elliott
Metal Arts Director
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Virginia Elliott is a sculptor, weaver, and mold maker, whose process-driven practice primarily centers around handwoven textiles and cast iron. She received her BFA from the University of Cincinnati and has worked with a number of production studios, art non-profit programs and sculpture parks in the south and midwest including Rookwood Pottery, Josephine Sculpture Park, and Sculpture Trails Outdoor Museum. In 2021 Elliott completed a Visiting Artist Residency at Sloss Furnaces, where she now serves as the Metal Arts Director.
Ajene Williams
Senior Artist in Residence
Williams began his art training while attending Woodlawn High School, where he was taught and mentored by Jena Momenee. Momenee enrolled him in the Summer Youth Program at Sloss Furnaces, where he was quickly recognized as a gifted artist, winning first place in the program’s exhibition. Thereafter, Williams was invited to work at Sloss Furnaces in 2011 as a paid intern. He currently holds the prestigious title of Artist in Residence at Sloss Furnaces.
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As a child, Ajene wanted to be a magician, “but I was never very good,” he says. It didn’t take long for him to realize that it wasn’t the magician’s equipment that made illusions, but rather the way the magician would use his hands. “Hands are magic,” he explains, “We can create anything with our hands, if we are able to imagine it.” Williams is gifted at manifesting exactly what he sees in perfect proportion, perfect harmony. Yet, he no longer seeks to create illusion with his magic. Now, he seeks only to show the world’s deepest, most often missed truths.
Hugh Patton
Artist in Residence
Hugh Patton is an interdisciplinary artist ranging from works that incorporate elements of sculpture, installations, performance, and drawing. Making work that typically relies on a site-responsive practice and has a deep intention for specific material choices. Working within themes of labor, process, and the intersection between industry and nature, his works aim to transform, rearrange, and re-contextualize spaces and their contents in order to speak to both the specific of a place and its connection to a larger or universal context.
“I need to spend time with a place, get to know it, study it, work within it, soak it in, revere it. Let it fill me up and then filter its contents through my own. Resulting in works that feel authentic to the place they exist in (both in the material usage and where they end up. I can’t make work in a vacuum and I like my works to live and exist within the context they are born from.”
Patton has deep roots within the cast iron art community and is dedicated to continuing and sharing the craft, process, and passion with a community of artists, students, and newcomers.
“ working within Sloss Furnaces and Sloss Metal Arts is an amazing opportunity to learn, grow, and connect to iron casting (both historically and its contemporary practice), and to the city of Birmingham. "
Adri Hawkins
Artist in Residence
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Adrianna Hawkins is a multimedia artist from Louisiana and earned her BFA from Louisiana
State University. Adrianna experimented with several mediums before finding deep connection
in cast metal and fibers. Using these materials, she explores the contrast of comfort and
discomfort for what it adds to the human experience. In her work with metal, she continually returns to the idea of immortalizing comfort and how it can go hand in hand with unsettling experiences. In her process of sewing, specifically quilting, she engages the material for its roots in comfort and rest to contrast the uncomfortable truths and awarenesses she dissects for the viewer.​​
Ian Skinner
Foundry Manager
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Ian Skinner is an artist and maker from Jacksonville, FL currently working in Birmingham, AL. He received a BFA from The University of North Florida and MFA from The University of Mississippi. After completing his MFA, Skinner worked as a blacksmithing apprentice at the National Ornamental Metal Museum in Memphis, TN. His studio practice is a sculptural exploration of material, form, surface, and craft that elevates commonly seen elements found within both industrial and natural environments. While emphasizing the original design aesthetics of industrial objects, the works recontextualize these reclaimed elements as art objects showcasing remnants of our past as artifacts to be valued.
Cecelia Moseley
Operations Manager
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Cecelia Moseley is a mixed media artist from Meridian, Mississippi, whose work explores the complexities of language, perception, and learning. She works with a diverse range of materials—including metal, acrylic, paper, ceramics, styrofoam, light, and vinyl—to create vibrant, immersive installations. Her work often draws from her personal experiences with dyslexia and learning differences. Moseley’s most recent work highlights the fading presence of cursive and handwriting in schools, examining what is lost when traditional forms of writing are no longer taught in a technology driven culture.
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She earned her BFA in Sculpture from the University of Mississippi in 2020 and her MFA from Louisiana State University in 2024. Beyond her studio work, Moseley is the Operations Manager at Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark in Birmingham, AL, and serves as the Social Media Director for the Yokna Sculpture Trail in Oxford, MS. She has also taught sculpture and assisted galleries at LSU, where she was awarded the Dean’s Medal in recognition of her academic and creative achievements.
Gwen Kelling
Artist in Residence
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Gwen earned her BA in Studio Art and Botany at Ohio Wesleyan University in 2016 and her MFA in Sculpture at Southern Illinois University - Carbondale in 2024, with a five year interim as head bronze bell-maker at the Verdin foundry in Cincinnati, Ohio. Gwen’s affinities for foundry processes and heavy machinery are the core inspirations for her metalwork, which spatially conflate the artist, her devices of creative industry, and the sculptural objects birthed from their integration. These hybrid objects provide physical manifestations for the cyclical sociopolitical mechanisms currently operating to control gender expression and attack queerness. Gwen visualizes these abstract systems and the trans body as equally capable of major overhaul, restoration, and reinvention.
Recent recognitions for Gwen’s work include winning the International Sculpture Center’s Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award in 2023 and a feature in the 2023 Bureau of Queer Art Volume II, a magazine collection of international LGBTQIA+ artists and art with an accompanying podcast and hybrid online/in-person exhibition.
Get to Know Us
Sloss Metal Arts Staff & Foundry Crew
The Sloss Metal Arts staff and foundry crew support the daily operation of Sloss Furnaces’ historic iron foundry. They oversee foundry operations, maintenance, safety, and fabrication while supporting artists, workshops, and public programs. The crew plays a key role in education, community engagement, and preserving Sloss’ industrial legacy through contemporary metal arts.
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Resident Artists (3-Year Work-Residency)
Resident Artists are full-time, 3-year work-residency artists at Sloss Metal Arts. They balance personal studio practice with foundry work, including iron casting, fabrication, maintenance, and teaching. Responsibilities include producing commissioned works, participating in national conferences, leading on-site demonstrations, and maintaining the foundry and shop. Working closely with Sloss leadership, Resident Artists contribute to commissions, outreach, and programming while actively developing their own artistic practice.​​​​