Explore the fluid nature of a solid element with Mind and Mettle, a striking collection of steel forged sculptural works by Alex Wixted. Through a blend of traditional blacksmithing techniques and modern artistic innovation, Wixted uses steel like ink and transforms it into a medium for storytelling.

Drawing from nature, the human experience, and the role blacksmithing has played in his own sense of self, Wixted’s works reflect the resilience and complexity of both metal and spirit. Mind and Mettle invites viewers to discover fired, forged and embedded in steel what is often ephemeral, dismissed or misunderstood in life.

Fairy Circle/Changelings draws on the widely held superstitions that a ring of mushrooms is a portal to the Fae Realm, and that if you step inside the fae can take control of you and your actions. It also draws on the Irish mythology of Changelings, the belief that one's child had been stolen away by the fae folk and replaced with one of their own.

Historically, parents dressed children in disguises to attempt to protect them, but once a child was believed to be a changeling, there was a high chance of them being killed or abandoned in the wild by their parents, out of deep fear of the fae. Modern interpretations have suggested that when a child was suspected of being replaced with a changeling, it was the child’s inherent neurodiversity, beginning to make itself known.

Further, one cannot discuss the fae without acknowledging the inherent material nature of a forged sculpture. Iron was widely believed to act as a charm or ward against the fae, that cold steel would burn them on contact and would deter malicious spirits from visiting you or causing you harm.

The mirror not only represents the portal to the fae realms, but allows one to reflect that historically one may have been considered a changeling, just for having a brain that understands and interprets the world differently.