FOLDFORMING.ORG is designed for the enjoyment of artists and art lovers alike. It is home to the annual Lewton-Brain Foldform Competition and a hub for centralized access to learning resources about foldforming techniques in the metal arts. Our mission is to inspire artists to push the creative boundaries of foldforming and to spotlight talented metal artists around the world.
​Metal artists will be inspired by the work on these pages and find learning resources about foldforming tools and techniques.
​View all past results of the annual Lewton-Brain Foldform Competition. Enter your work in 2016! When the Call for Entries is published, this is where you'll find it.
Connect with other metalsmiths who share a passion for foldforming by joining Foldforming Central on Facebook, an engaged group with members from 25+ countries.
Art lovers will delight in our collection of images and videos chronicling the Lewton-Brain Foldform Competition, an event for metal artists around the globe.
Visit the competition galleries (top menu) to view winners and Jurors' Choice selections arranged by competition year. Special galleries and interviews will be added periodically to showcase artists who creatively explore foldforming techniques in metal.
Are you intrigued by the work of a particular artist? You'll find artist spotlights and links to artist websites here, so do explore further! ​​
"Spiritus" by Theresa Nguyen, www.theresanguyen.co.uk, Birmingham, West Midland, U.K., photo by Richard Valencia Ltd
Foldforming.org is owned and directed by Sue Lacy, a creative strategist who began partnering with Charles Lewton-Brain in 2011 to build resources and a community for metalsmiths interested in foldforming. At that time, she founded the Foldforming Central community that now includes members in 25+ countries.
Sue has directed the annual Lewton-Brain Foldform Competition since 2013, co-authored the art book "Foldforming at 30" with Rhoda Weber Mack in 2014, and wrote "The Evolution of Foldforming" for Art Jewelry magazine in 2015.
Sue is an independent consultant specializing in communications, marketing, community outreach, and process improvement. She is also a metalsmith who enjoys foldforming quite a lot. Read more about Sue Lacy...
Master goldsmith Charles Lewton-Brain is head of the Jewellery / Metals Program at the Alberta College of Art + Design. He is a world renowned author, educator, artist, and pioneer of the innovative suite of metal techniques known as foldforming. Foldforming was recognized by the British Museum Research Lab in 1990 as "a new approach to working metals without precedent," and by a Rolex award in 1991. And in 2012 he was the recipient Canada's prestigious Governor General's Award for contributions to the visual arts.
As co-founder of www.foldforming.org, Charles Lewton-Brain plays an important advisory role related to content and mission. He is a generous educator who has written many books and thousands of pages to support metal artists. For an overview of his foldforming resources, visit our Resources / Learning page. He is also the author of "Foldforming," the definitive book about foldforming in the metal arts. Read more about Charles Lewton-Brain...
​And many thanks to Ed Mack and Rhoda Weber Mack for co-founding the Lewton-Brain Foldform Competition with Charles Lewton-Brain in 2012. Without their vision, the competition would not be here today.
This video was made by the Canada Council for the Arts to recognize Charles for the Governor General Award
"Charles Lewton-Brain is one of the most knowledgeable, most celebrated and most accessible metalsmiths in North America," wrote Alan Revere in The Innovators back in 1998. In the November 2015 issue of Art Jewelry magazine, in the story "The Evolution of Foldforming" by Sue Lacy, Revere updated his observations by saying, "Charles is an outlier and a genius who thinks beyond what most of us can even conceive of. [He] opened the door to a whole new way of thinking about metal that everyone had overlooked, even though foldforming is intuitively obvious. … I am not surprised that there is a now a third generation of foldformers out there. Just like kids who grew up with computers, this generation takes foldforming for granted; it is part of their repertoire.”
Alan Revere is Founder and Director of the highly acclaimed Revere Academy of Jewelry Arts in San Francisco, CA., U.S., and served on the jury of the 2014 Lewton-Brain Foldform Competition. Click here for his write-up of Charles in his 1998 series, The Innovators. Click here to read his 2015 comments in "The Evolution of Foldforming."
Charles Lewton-Brain is a generous educator who has written thousands of pages to support metal artists. He is also the author of "Foldforming," the definitive book about foldforming in the metal arts.