Marcia McEachron

Growing up in Milwaukee as an only child to a single working mother, McEachron had to find ways to entertain herself. She filled her days with sketching—a passion that led her to the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, where she earned the school’s first drawing and painting degree in 1970. After graduating, she spent eight years working in arts administration at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Minneapolis American Indian Center before stumbling upon what would become her life’s work. “One day in 1978, I walked into a blacksmith shop in Uptown and there was this guy working the metal,” says McEachron. “He was teaching classes, so I signed up.” Tool by tool, apprenticeship by apprenticeship, McEachron hammered away at the age-old craft, gradually gaining recognition in the public and private spheres for her contemporary spin on hand-forged steel furniture and art.