Media

One night, long after Racks Brew House had turned off the lights, a couple doors away in the garage-turned-workshop of the new community center, the Elkland Hub, music blared from behind the door that says Higher Ground Welding and Art. It was 2:30 a.m. when Anne Alexander turned around to see a fully uniformed local officer. 

Anne Alexander is a Tioga County native who creates nature-inspired metal artwork. A biologist and former career industry welder, Anne now owns and operates Higher Ground Welding and Art, a two-bay shop in Elkland, Pennsylvania, offering small-scale fabrication and repair and welding instruction.

Creating a sense of community just down the street is The Hub, Elkland’s new community center at 210 West Main. The revamped building offers space for private or public events, classes for adults, like yoga and self-defense, and activities for kids, like karate or indoor soccer. Anne Alexander operates The Hub with her husband, Dwayne, who she calls the “driving force” behind its creation.

“Normally I work with steel and I’m pretty good at making it do what i want it to do for my vision to come to fruition but wood is much different and woods already got stresses in a life of its own before you start working it so the wood kind of determines what you have to do to it,” said Alexander.

The artists in the exhibit include two local metal sculptors, Anne Alexander of Nelson and Mark English of Westfield. Both artists forge old and new metal to create a range of figural and abstract sculptures.

Germania blacksmith artist Doug Firestone worked with second grade students at Danville Primary School. Firestone was an artist in residence working on a train metal sculpture for the school. The train sculpture is made from recycled metal materials such as hot water heaters and plumping pipes.