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If Joanne Taplin were a forger of metals, she would make a sword, and it would be an instrument that embodied the perfect union of mystery, simplicity, beauty and ingenuity. She is the first to tell you that she is a fabricator, though, not a forger, and finds her joy in joining pieces of metal to create highly original furniture pieces. Intrigued by the lyrical symmetry of mathematical forms like the Realeaux triangle, challenged by the demands of function and captivated by the infinite possibilities for design solutions, Taplin has found her artistic niche as a metals artisan. Currently Taplin’s time is spent on commissions and her own creations, but there is a constant interplay between the two. “For me ideas evolve as I am working,” she said. “As I’m playing around with a piece for one client, I’ll see something and think, ‘that’s not what I need right now, but it’s interesting,’ and I’ll take a digital picture for later,” Taplin says of her ever evolving collection of imagery ideas.” The union of two esthetics isn’t always an obvious one. But like all artists who work largely on commission, Taplin finds a strong sense of success when a commissioned piece resonates with her client. “A client will come in with a specific need, and then I’ll start playing with ideas in my head,” she says. “It’s nice when I have a piece that I like and then when the client sees it, they say, ‘yes! That’s just what I wanted.’ It’s great when I can make myself and the client happy at the same time.”

Though Taplin’s work has evolved to fit a unique style that marries formal elements of medieval art with the of Frank Lloyd Wright’s clean, simple Arts and Crafts lines, she adds organic elements, too: a slumped glass shade atop a hard-angled metal base yields a unique but balanced piece. The sculptural element of the slumped glass creates a technical puzzle she is eager to solve. “I then have to figure out how to put the two pieces together. There are other challenges, too. There are a lot of small, unique spaces in homes around here, so I may have to make a pot rack to fit a weird space—I love it!” Not all the challenges are project related. As a working mother with a 3 boys, sometimes Taplin has to steal the night hours to complete her projects. But the lure of her artwork is something that has been with her since her teen years. In high school Taplin’s art professor also was a metalworker, and he helped her develop her interest in jewelry. Once in college at the Center for Creative Design in Detroit, Mich., Taplin found the limitations of jewelry combined with the onset of carpal tunnel from repetitive small motor work waned her interest in design. A course in glass fabrication forced her to create steel forms for slumping the glass, and that led to a love affair with metals that has only seemed to grow. She first set up shop in Detroit and then later in Chicago, where her pieces were chosen for the Merchandise Mart and the prestigious, cutting-edge Sculptural Objects and Functional Art show. When a boyfriend lured her to make a move to the mountains, she found Telluride irresistible. The boyfriend is long gone but Taplin, who has a home, husband, children and metals studio in Ridgway, is now well rooted in the soil of Colorado. Looking back she thinks that the years have softened her style from a spate of hard lines to a mixture of more organic forms. Many pieces over the years have found their way into her home, where they are put to the test. “When something goes in the house, we use it, and I am always asking, how could this be better?” she says. “Many of my pieces evolve this way.” Future evolutions, Taplin says, include augmenting her successful cathedral mantle clock to a full sized grandfather clock, among other things: “I like to stretch the boundaries,” she says. “I’m always up for a challenge.”

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