Tom Joyce, artist, MacArthur Foundation Fellow, and CAST contributor is the lead guest curator of Striking Iron: The Art of African Blacksmiths, an exhibition at UCLA’s Fowler Museum through December 30. This exhibition features objects from blades to currency and musical instruments to body adornments, the bulk of them made of forged iron. It “reveals the histories of invention and technical sophistication that led African blacksmiths to transform one of Earth’s most fundamental natural resources into objects of life-changing utility, empowerment, prestige, artistry, and spiritual potency.”