Sharon Stampfer began her professional career working at Luce et Studio Architects, where design was inspired by art, and art was often a part of the architecture. A designer with a passion for materials, she has always been enchanted by metal’s inherent properties. She fell in love with metalsmithing while learning how to raise metal sheet into vessel forms. In 2022, twenty-six years after earning her Master of Architecture degree from the University of Pennsylvania, she earned a Master of Fine Arts in Metals/Jewelry/CAD-CAM from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture.

As an artist, Stampfer embraces the physicality of working with her hands. She uses a spontaneous approach with traditional metalsmithing tools and techniques. Her process invites discovery through improvisation, experimentation, and play. She considers her practice a form of nurturing, allowing instinct to guide her hands to forge, raise, fold, and sculpt. The love and patience required to coax metal into forms comparable to the joys and challenges of raising children. Her research explores ideas about holding and being held, touch and self-care. The objects shaped by her hands are extensions of her body, to engage with them is to be held by her hands.