Myra Mimlitsch-Gray

Myra Mimlitsch-Gray (born July 11, 1962) is an American metalsmith, artist, critic, and educator living and working in Stone Ridge, New York.

Mimlitsch-Gray was born in Camden, New Jersey in 1962, the daughter of Paul Joseph Mimlitsch and Myra Elizabeth Buck.

Rather than make a chalice, candlestick, or other item common to traditional silversmithing or hollowware, Mimlitsch-Gray creates negative impressions of these objects which are split into two equal halves and embedded in wooden or metal block forms inspired by shaker design.

"[15] Sugar Bowl and Creamer III from this series is held in the permanent collection of the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.

[19] Particularly in the 19th century, rough hand-hammered textures were often purposely left on objects to signify that they were hand-made and imply a greater value than their machine-made counterparts.

[20] Mimlitsch-Gray plays with this history, and the exaggerated hammer marks in Magnification act as a fetishized signifier of labor and its perceived virtue.

In part, this transformation is anthropomorphic; Mimlitsch-Gray describes them as "contingent, reflecting the anxiety of service",[25] but these objects also highlight the very nature of the material itself as one that is easily recyclable through melting and re-rendering.

[29] Mimlitsch-Gray’s series Something For the Table provides "tentative"[30] possibilities of what a utilitarian object could be if stripped of historical reference in form and decoration.

Jenni Sorkin describes: “Deftly avoiding traditional forms, Mimlitsch-Gray embraces formless objects without prescriptive usages… By and large, the works in this series stage the sensuality of fullness: they read as almost pillowy, a perfect trompe l'oeil in which the illusion of lightness is offset by metalwork’s material thud.

[32] Cindi Strauss, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Decorative Arts and Design and Anna Walker, the Windgate Foundation Curatorial Fellow for Contemporary Craft at The Museum of Fine Arts Houston writes, "We are pleased to acquire Myra Mimlitsch-Gray's Split Slab....