ron gerton

Ron Gerton is a retired mechanical engineer with over 30 years of experience in the nuclear field. He has always enjoyed creating art to keep life in focus. He teaches jewelry casting at the local college. He is self-taught and has made most of his equipment, including a bronze casting foundry. The Art Nouveau style, with its emphasis on natural forms and shapes, is his favorite design inspiration. The Bonsai plant, skillfully trained to defy nature and gravity, is a classic example and heavily influences his work. He transforms things that he finds in nature, that are no longer living, into metal for incorporation into his art pieces. This includes insects, leaves, seedpods, contorted sagebrush, and cactus remains. These metal “fossils” now have a permanence that can be enjoyed for generations. To him, nature is the greatest creator of beauty and his challenge is to display it beautifully.

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Going “green” has long been a major factor in his art. Thrift stores abound with potential art materials. Cast off industrial materials are also a great source. The tens of thousands of small wood pieces from laser cutting businesses and found objects are incorporated into his wood turnings and wall pieces. “Everything is a raw material for something else” is his motto.

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He has had pieces accepted into numerous juried art shows and has won numerous Best of Show, Best Three Dimensional, and Award of Merit honors. He has been the featured artist for month-long shows at several galleries in the Pacific Northwest. He has pieces in the permanent collection of the Detroit Institute of Art Museum, the New York Museum of Art and Design, the Boston Museum of Fine Art, The Addison Museum of Art in Boston, The Fuller Craft Museum in Boston, The Minneapolis Museum of Fine Art, The Mobile Museum of Fine Art, and the University of Michigan Art Museum. His work can also be found in many fine private collections and in numerous books and art magazines.