Meet the Yardies
The Founders
Nick Bauta
Nick Bauta is an artist and designer who crafts leather jewelry and clothes, urban furniture, and metal sculpture. He f... read more →
Clay Rockefeller
Clay Rockefeller is an artist/entrepreneur who values volunteerism and community. His personal experiences and his wor... read more →
The Staff
Howie Sneider Executive Director
Howie was born in Syracuse, NY. His childhood exploration of the forests and abandoned quarries of central New York enco... read more →
Chris Dalpe Communications and Events Manager
Chris Dalpe is a graphic designer and illustrator who lives in Providence, Rhode Island. Originally from a small farm to... read more →
Tim Ferland Public Projects Director
Tim Ferland has worked as a fabricator & project manager for multiple highly renowned artists for over 10 years ... read more →
Ben Filchak Studio Manager
Ben Filchak was born in a small town in northwestern CT. Early in life, Ben found his passion for the arts and became ob... read more →
Margo Karoff-Hunger Workforce Program Coordinator
Margo Karoff-Hunger was born and raised in Providence, Rhode Island. She has been involved at the Steel Yard since 2007 ... read more →
Michelle Raccone Studio Assistant
Michelle Raccone, born & raised in Connecticut, received her Bachelors of Arts with a concentration in Sculpture... read more →
Jenny Sparks Client Relations Manager
Jenny grew up in Hampstead, Maryland, where she enjoyed playing outside with her three siblings and many pets. She gradu... read more →
Islay Taylor Associate Director
Islay Taylor is a contemporary art jeweler, who uses the body as a pedestal to showcase wearable sculptures. She receive... read more →
Sally Turner Development Director
With close to twenty years of experience in community-based non-profit management, Turner has worked with Groundwork Pro... read more →
The Board
Jennifer Carnevale Board Chair
Megan Boyaval Board Secretary
Frank Previti Treasurer
Rafael Cerrada
Damian Ewens
Nat Harris
Kristine Merz
Benjamin Rackliffe
Manya Rubinstein
Emily Vander Does
The Instructors
Blacksmithing
Carley Eisenberg
Carley Eisenberg is a blacksmith by trade and furniture maker by design. She received her Master’s in Furniture De... read more →
John Harvey
John D. Harvey caught the blacksmithing bug at The Steel Yard in 2014 and hasn't stopped since! He works primarily... read more →
Nick Tomlin
Nick Tomlin grew up in Singapore and England before moving to Providence to study Industrial Design at RISD. During his... read more →
Willow Zietman
Willow Zietman is a blacksmith, flameworker and metal artist working out of Waltham, MA. She has studied metal arts ever... read more →
Ceramics
Patti Barnatt
Patti Barnatt believes that making things is essential to one’s life and that sharing one’s expertise with o... read more →
Jane Dillon
Jane Dillon is a teacher, potter, and designer from Providence. After graduating from RISD, she apprenticed in San Franc... read more →
John Fazzino
John Fazzino’s work is an eclectic collection of objects for and about the garden. The larger outdoor work nests i... read more →
Fredric Gorman
Originally a native of Rhode Island, Fredric Gorman studied 2D Fine Arts at RISD and the Massachusetts College of Art an... read more →
liz hafey
I am a thrower. I’m a person who digs up material from the earth and speaks through it. I look at my whole proc... read more →
Danika Notar
Danika Notar was born into a middle class family in the Philadelphia suburbs. Her mother a painter, her father an engine... read more →
liz potenza
Liz Hafey is a potter, ceramicist, teacher and sculptural artist. She has studied in several places, including Massachus... read more →
Jewelry
Alison Bruun
Alison Bruun is a metalsmith and teaching artist located in Providence, RI. She took her first jewelry class for fun as ... read more →
Heather Guidero
Heather Guidero is a 2002 RISD graduate with a BFA in jewelry and metalsmithing. After 3 years of goldsmithing in New Yo... read more →
Andrew Haviland
Andrew Haviland is a maker with a day job. He lives and works in Providence, Rhode Island creating jewelry and art for h... read more →
Steven Lubecki
Steven Lubecki is an artist living in Providence, RI. He has been working as a professional goldsmith for the last 12 ye... read more →
Patrick McMillan
Patrick McMillan has been a practicing jeweler and metalsmith 2003 when he graduated from Nova Scotia College of Art and... read more →
Amie Plante
Amie Louise Plante is a native Rhode Island artist, jeweler, designer and teacher extraordinaire. She earned her BFA in... read more →
Metalworking Welding
Tim Ferland Public Projects Director
Tim Ferland has worked as a fabricator & project manager for multiple highly renowned artists for over 10 years ... read more →
Welding
Elliot Berry
A graduate of Hampshire College in Applied Design, Elliot has an innate interest in all things mechanical. As an artist,... read more →
Tim Ferland Public Projects Director
Tim Ferland has worked as a fabricator & project manager for multiple highly renowned artists for over 10 years ... read more →
Alaina Mahoney
Alaina’s work takes elements that are sacred to people—things that are precious specifically to them—a... read more →
Isabel Mattia
Isabel Mattia is an artist and curator who spends her creative time in her studio within Smokestack Studios in Fall Rive... read more →
Luke Montes
Luke Montes came to Providence by way of San Diego, California. He began at the Steel Yard as a job training participant... read more →
Nora Rabins
Nora Rabins makes public art and utilitarian sculpture. Her background is in art, logic and design (with degrees from S... read more →
Max Van Pelt
Max Van Pelt is a Providence-based contemporary artist whose work moves freely between sculpture, painting, and installa... read more →
Mike White
Mike White is a sculptor and Providence native. His work with sculpture mainly focuses on the human body and the spaces ... read more →