Carmen M. Perez- Stoppert
she/her
Chicago, Illinios USA
Latina Artist • Metalsmith • Sculptor • Educator
Based in Chicago, IL
I specialize in sculpture, drawings, and mixed-metals jewelry that reflect emotion, movement, and human connection. My creative process begins with music, songs that stir something visceral and spark a connection to the body. I translate that energy into line drawings, often combining solid and open spaces to explore tension, fluidity, and form. These figures become abstract and exaggerated, responding to the rhythm and stimulation of sound.
Once I have the shape, I enter a state of deep focus in my studio, surrounded by tools and raw materials. I hammer, saw, shape, sand, and solder metals—bronze, silver, and mixed alloys, into pieces that carry the spirit of the original drawing. I often work late into the night, staying true to the emotional core of each design.
For me, it’s essential that emotion is transmitted through the metal. My work centers on the connection between people, love, happiness, friendship, and intertwined souls, drawn from daily life and embodied in the human form. Each piece is a declaration of becoming, a reflection of resilience and grace.
As a Latina artist, I am committed to personal growth and lifelong learning. I actively seek new techniques and methods to refine my practice and support others through teaching and mentorship. My work has been exhibited in galleries, expos, art fairs, and artisan markets.
For over 30 years, I’ve created in my studio, making custom pieces for clients, mentoring students, and building community through art.
I am a lover of music, travel, social media, friendship, and justice. My practice is not just about making, it’s about connecting, empowering, and flourishing.
“I sculpt the human form to explore identity, tension, and transformation. The abstracted figure, offers a powerful visual language to express both personal and universal themes. Raised bi-culturally, my work reflects the push and pull between tradition and ambition. I navigate the expectations placed on Latina women and the realities of growing up in a contemporary urban American setting. Each piece is shaped by lived experience - by resilience, contradiction and the desire to carve space for authenticity. Through mixed metals, bronze, silver, and storytelling, I create one-of-a-kind works that speak to strength, fluidity, and the beauty of becoming.
How does your work relate to the theme of flourish(ing)?
“I explore flourishing not as a soft bloom, but as a raw, tactile process, one forged through tension, resilience, and transformation. Through mixed metals, bronze, silver, and storytelling, I create one-of-a-kind works that speak to strength, fluidity, and the beauty of becoming. Each piece reflects a journey: growing through adversity, evolving across identities, and thriving through deliberate, expressive form.
Flourishing, for me, is both mechanical and spiritual. It lives in the raw edges, the hand-forged joints, the relics embedded in form. I choose materials that carry history, scraps reclaimed, textures preserved, surfaces scarred with intention. These choices honor the unseen labor of becoming, the quiet power of survival, and the grace found in imperfection.
My wearable works are not just adornments; they are declarations. They invite the wearer to participate in their own evolution, to claim space, to carry strength. My sculptures often reference the human form and explore what it means to grow beyond constraint,how bodies, identities, and stories stretch, fracture, and reassemble.
As an educator and community builder, I extend this theme beyond the studio. I empower others to discover creativity, to flourish through making, and to find meaning in material. My workshops are spaces of transformation, where process becomes ritual and storytelling becomes connection.
In every aspect, form, function, philosophy, I ask: What does it mean to thrive? Not in perfection, but in process. Not in symmetry, but in truth. Flourishing, in my hands, is a radical act of becoming.”
“Duo” 7 1/2 ht 2” W 2” square
Sterling silver, brass ring, Marble base
Sand casting and solid sterling silver rod, 2025How does your creative practice allow you to flourish (grow, thrive, blossom)?
“My creative practice allows me to flourish by giving form to transformation, both mine and others’. Through metalsmithing and sculpture, I engage with tension, weight, and resilience in a way that mirrors personal growth. I work with bronze, silver, and mixed metals not just for their beauty, but for their history, their resistance, their capacity to be shaped and reshaped. Each piece I create is a negotiation between control and surrender, precision and intuition. That process is where I thrive.
Flourishing, for me, isn’t about ease, it’s about emergence. It’s the moment a raw edge becomes intentional, a fracture becomes a seam, a relic becomes a story. My practice invites me to evolve constantly: refining technique, deepening narrative, and expanding how I connect with others. Whether I’m building a sculpture, making jewelry, leading a workshop, or preparing for a market, I’m cultivating growth, through risk, repetition, and reflection.
Teaching and community work also feed this cycle. When I guide others in discovering their own creative voice, I witness new forms of flourishing. I see how making becomes healing, how adornment becomes empowerment, how storytelling becomes connection. That exchange fuels my own evolution.
Ultimately, my studio is a space of becoming. It’s where I test ideas, honor materials, and shape meaning. It’s where I grow, not just as an artist, but as a person committed to clarity, impact, and grace. Flourishing is not a final state, It’s the ongoing act of showing up, making, and transforming.”
As a queer+ artist, what would you like to see and/or what do you need in order to flourish during this time?
“My Sculpture has a brass circle that can be on or off. In the photos you can see I have attached with and without. ”
“As a queer+ artist, I need spaces that honor complexity, where identity, material, and story are allowed to stretch, fracture, and reassemble. I flourish when I’m surrounded by communities that value boldness, truth, and transformation. That means curators, markets, and institutions that actively support diverse voices and make room for them to thrive.
I want to see platforms that engage queer artists with depth, where our work is funded equitably, archived with care, and supported without compromise. I need opportunities that don’t ask me to dilute my voice or explain my existence. I want residencies, grants, and exhibitions that understand the emotional labor embedded in our practice and reflect that in their support.
I flourish when I can teach, make, and share without fear, when storytelling becomes connection, and adornment becomes empowerment. I need collaborators who respect my vision, who welcome direct feedback, and who understand that flourishing isn’t always soft, it can be jagged, raw, and defiant.
Most of all, I need time. Time to experiment, to rest, to refine. Time to build relationships with materials, with communities, and with myself. Flourishing, for me, is not a final state, it’s the ongoing act of showing up, making, and transforming.”