Meet our Board
CoMA is run by a group of volunteer metals professionals, hobbyists and general enthusiasts!
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Kevin McConnaughey, President
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Kevin is an amateur metalsmith and lapidary artist. He designs jewelry and small metal art objects in gold, silver and bronze and a variety of precious and semi-precious stones.
His work combines traditional lost wax casting, digital modeling, and precision 3D printing with traditional metalworking and jewelry fabrication techniques. Kevin is particularly interested in using lost wax casting to create jewelry and small architectural castings.
He has personally benefited from participation in COMA conferences and the associated community of COMA jewelers, metalsmiths, instructors and fellow students and would like to help strengthen and grow that community.
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Alec Schweiger, Vice President
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Alec has an MFA with an emphasis in Metals and Jewelry from Colorado State University-Fort Collins, and has been teaching metalsmithing at the collegiate level (CSU) since 2019. He received a work study scholarship to the Penland School of Craft to study under Kim Cridler, as well as learning from Navajo Silversmithing masters Allison and Trent Lee.
His "why" is described as being an extremely curious person who has always been driven to figure out how things work or how they are made.
Alec has a passion for teaching and is thrilled by the opportunity to share his experiences and skills.
A few of his favorite things are: disc golf, golf, and jamming to vinyl with his wife, Emma, and dog, Micah.
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Denallie Moore, Treasurer
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Denallie Moore received their BFA from the University of Wyoming and apprenticed under their uncle, a master goldsmith based in Minneapolis. During their time in Minneapolis, they taught and volunteered at the Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center. Denallie also spent years as a volunteer (and once upon a time, an intern) for the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation in Cody, Wyoming. Through these experiences, they've developed a love of melding metalsmithing with community engagement as well as a deep appreciation for the stories art and objects can tell.
While they work as a jeweler for their day job, they attempt to capture the futuristic alongside the mundane in their personal work. Combining new technologies with old techniques helps to create the nostalgic sci-fi imagery that they hope to portray.
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Helene Arendt, Secretary
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Helene is the artisan behind CSBmetalsmith, inspired by her Austrian Opa, a master cabinetmaker who taught her precision and pride in craftsmanship. Growing up in his Werkstätte, she learned to create unique, high-quality pieces—values that guide her work today.
In June 2020, Helene earned the prestigious Roycroft Artisan status, an honor reserved for artisans who meet rigorous standards of exceptional craftsmanship, outstanding design, and ongoing artistic development. She proudly maintains this distinction through annual juried reviews and strives toward her ultimate goal: becoming a Master Roycroft Artisan.
While working full-time in IT, Helene devotes her remaining hours to metalsmithing in her Colorado studio. She serves on multiple nonprofit boards, but values her role as Secretary of CoMA, and giving back to the community that fuels her passion and creativity.
Her work is exhibited at The Grizzly Creek Gallery in Georgetown, CO, The Schoolhouse Gallery, and The Roycroft Copper Shop Gallery in East Aurora, NY.
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Lori Baer, Education Chair
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Lori Baer is a retired cartographer from the USGS/Mapping Division at the Denver Federal Center. She earned a Bachelors Degree in Earth Science and minored in Fine Art. As a college student and in the following years, she balanced science and art, making sure her brain was equally balanced. Lori has been a member of CoMA since its first conference in Salida, CO in 1996. She has always had a passion for the knowledge of how things are made, as she started making jewelry and beading with her older sister when she was quite young. Those hobbies are still her ‘go to’ when time allows, and when the creative outlet is screaming.
Lori is honored to participate on the board again as Education Chair. She is open to all ideas and suggestions as to what we can do to ‘spark’ CoMA's mission in our state and in our communities. Lori is energized to create and support events that encourage students and others to participate in this incredibly special, talented, and recognized nationwide non-profit organization.
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Baleigh Acebo, Exhibitions Co-Chair
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Tinkering with craft began for Baleigh as a wee adolescent—by taking objects apart to see how they were built. She pursued a BFA in Creative Writing and realized she had made a terrible mistake, because what she really wanted to do was work with her hands. Baleigh then enrolled in the North Bennet Street School’s Jewelry Making & Repair program in Bahston, MA and everything was good again.
NBSS trained her to craft her own tools, fabricate intricate pieces from scratch, set diamonds and precious gems, and repair fine jewelry. As a process jeweler, Baleigh is turned on from the problem solving involved in building intricate pieces and setting weird stones. Her work contains bold colors, clean lines and lots of geometry.
Baleigh is the Director of Alchemy at the artisan jewelry gallery, Balefire Goods, and teaches metalsmithing and stone setting workshops across the US. She shares a studio in Denver, Colorado with her talented hubs Alex Boyd, along with their two pups and cat.
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Alex Boyd, Exhibitions Co-Chair
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Alex Boyd is a very serious artist. If you don’t get it it’s not because there’s nothing to get, it’s because you don’t understand art. He’s dealing with serious themes that challenge our preconceived notions of subjects and ideas relevant to the most pressing existential conundrums of modern existence and stuff like that. He’s a true iconoclast.
When he’s not smashing icons or being forcibly ejected from various houses of worship for smashing their icons he’s making art that your two year old couldn’t come close to making so don’t even try that.
Alex lives the life of a true bohemian in a neighborhood so hip he won’t say where it is so that the Philistines don’t move in and ruin it with their Starbucks lattes and Arby’s roast beef sandwiches. All he’ll say is that it’s somewhere in Denver.
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Ethan Schultz, Communications Chair
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Ethan is primarily a lapidary artist who makes jewelry out of stone, but he loves working in metal where he can!
He has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Metropolitan State University of Denver (MSU) with a focus in jewelry and metalsmithing. Ethan has been a part of CoMA since September 2019.
He loves creating new connections and working with other artists to build and strengthen the metals community.
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John Sullivan, Member at Large
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John Sullivan is an artist, metalsmith, jeweler, and educator, whose work focuses on psychology, neuropsychology, and interpersonal relationships. Working as a contemporary metalsmith, John explores the themes and issues surrounding dysfunctional relationships, psychological disorders, and the transformative process of healing.
John attended graduate school at the State University of New York, New Paltz.John earned his BFA at Colorado State University in Fort Collins and was an apprentice to artist Ira Sherman and an assistant to artist Nilda Getty.
John has taught as a substitute art teacher at the private institute Kent, Denver, as a TA at SUNY New Paltz, and as an instructor at High School Summer Sessions at Snowfarm, The New England Craft Program.