BY LISA BRODY
F
rom a young age, I was on
the less-conventional side. I
was always recreating
things, like coloring on the
inside of a sofa cushion. We'd make a
fort, and I'd want the fort to have
some art," laughs Darcy 1VIiro, a
Brooklyn, New York sculptural artist
who was raised in Bloomfield Hills.
The daughter of Jeffrey and
Marsha Miro of Bloomfield Hills,
Darcy credits them with the support
and encouragement that allowed her
to grow from an aspiring artist who
studied at Roeper, Cranbrook, and
Rhode Island School of Design to a
metal artist whose art is featured in
galleries, on the arms of collectors,
and as part of The Museum of
American Folk Art.
Miro creates one-of-a-kind, sculp-
tural jewelry out of silver and gold,
though she considers herself a sculp-
tor, not a jeweler. "I do a lot of cuffs,
which are very much about textures,"
she says. "The jewelry is small-scale
sculpture that you can have with you,
that is interactive and personal."
Her work is showcased on a much
grander scale, on the façade of The
Museum of American Folk Art.
Several years ago, the 30-year-old
Miro met architects Tod Williams
(himself a native Detroiter) and Billie
Tsien, who were interested in buying
one of her pieces. Williams and Tsien
were the architects for The Museum
of American Folk Art, and invited
her to be part of the process, design-
ing and manufacturing 1-by-l-foot
metal panels out of white bronze for
the exterior of the museum.
"I did a wax mold of the cracked
and pitted floor of this old canning
foundry, and then cast it into metal,
and that became the premise for the
panels for the façade," she says.
"This floor is eroded as a result of
people working and living, and the
concept was to incorporate that into
the front of the building, as folk art is
simple art made by real people."
Miro works in a studio in a new
home she and her boyfriend, musi-
cian and record producer Lars Weiss,
designed and built in Brooklyn. "I
touched every single part of this
house," she says. "I installed tile, I
made a sink, I made light fixtures,
and door handles, and drawer pulls."
Locally, Miro's work is shown at
the Suzanne Hilberry Gallery in
Ferndale. "Over the years, I've var-
ied the scale of my work," she notes.
"Each piece is evolutional, and
hinges on the last."
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