Rob is the founder, owner, and chief artist at Vinewoods Forge. In his late 60’s, Rob has had a long career as a farrier/blacksmith, as well as an artist. Rob’s distinctive melding of the inorganic metal with the organic forms of nature create compelling works.

In his own words from an interview at Cerulean Arts a few years ago:

I started doing sculpture as a metal artist 35 years ago. For the last 10 years, I have focused my full-time work on both functional and fine-art metal sculpture. My ideas come primarily from personal emotions elicited by the people around me. Most of the people I meet bring light and joy, an excitement for life. Occasionally I meet people who bring out the darkest of emotion: heartbreak, anguish, despair. Both of these types of people bring inspiration to my work, from compassion to catharsis; to celebrate the joy of true friendship or to exorcise the demons of betrayal.

On my early morning walks through the woods, I am always fascinated by the timeless life-or-death struggle between the invasive and indigenous species that populate the woodland. Bittersweet vines wrap themselves around majestic oaks and maple, investing nothing in their own structure and strangling the life from their hosts in a parasitic effort to gain prominence in the highest segments of the canopy. Sometimes the vine wins and the defeated tree withers away, leaving no support for the vine. Sometimes the tree wins, throwing off the invader and filling the canopy with color and beauty, albeit often permanently affected in its morphology by the once devastating encounter.

One notable characteristic about Rob, as attested to by those who know him and work with him, is that Rob could best be described as the “tree” rather than the “vine” in relation to what he said above. Rob is an unstoppable, gracious, encouraging individual who has helped many other artists further their careers either by teaching them, or by allowing use of Vinewoods Forge facilities for works they couldn’t complete in their home forges. He nourishes talent in others.

Rob lives in southern Chester County with his wife, Susan.