My personal meeting of Ries Niemi did not occur til some 20 years later when I moved out of Seattle to the Edison area. When he was introduced to me as Sheila's husband at a neighbor's gathering I thought just one thing "well this makes sense". With a highly creative and personal style to his work Ries brings together metals and textiles and defines himself as an industrial artist. "As a craftsman and an artist, I love materials. I am a student of the built world, of pop culture, and the making of things. I have always made clothes, both wearable and not." Out of art school Ries proceeded to teach himself industrial fabrication techniques, starting with wood and plastics,and  moving on to metals. " To draw with a cutting torch, to improvise with a milling machine, to forge intuitively. "But he also became an embroiderer, a sewer, a crocheter. I particularly love seeing these two expressions side by side in Ries's work, the intimate and domestic along with the broad architectural gesture and always his signature humor as an astute observer of the quirks and foibles of society. He has been awarded public commissions around the country and has been exhibited  and collected publicly and privately.

Both artists have developed  bodies of work for "Making up stories and looking at things sideways..." while living in Buenos Aires this past winter. They sometimes exhibit together but are not a "team" in their professional lives. They are two very individual artists. No doubt about that.