Many people know that the names Blue Pomegranate and Sondra Gerber are intricately connected, but did you know that Sondra also runs her own modern sculpture art brand?
Sondra Gerber’s personal brand is called Metal Petal Art, and she directs it from her home studio in Elkhorn, Nebraska. Metal Petal then sells Sondra’s work to Blue Pomegranate, as well to close to 150 galleries, gift shops, and art outlets around the country. Metal Petal also sells to several national art gift catalogs. In short, Sondra is one very busy and productive artist!
The Metal Petal studio includes a metal working shop, a finishing workspace, a paint booth, a glass studio, a shipping station, and computer workstations. An extremely important and crucial element to the studio is the Breville espresso coffee station! This would also be the brainstorming workstation, as Sondra and her staff discuss and problem solve everything from shipping procedures to new designs, to adapting to Omaha’s local art scene during challenging social and economic times. Breville is a popular brand at Metal Petal Art, where both the coffee pot and the espresso machine are used frequently. We have considered naming the Breville espresso machine and giving it an honorary Metal Petal team member status, because it faithfully works hard for us!
The human workforce behind Metal Petal includes Jason Gerber, Jennifer Cleveland, Troy Devine, and Courtney Brayton. Sondra does all designing, Jason covers tech, photography, lighting, phone calls and maintenance issues. These two do way more than this but we’re just covering main roles for now! Troy does all brushing of the aluminum sculptures, which gives the surface of the metal its reflective pattern and beauty. He also helps clean and paint each piece. Jennifer finishes the work and prepares the orders, which can include glitter or paint, bending and clear coating. She also ships the orders to galleries, and is the main point of contact with them. Jennifer also runs the fused glass studio, adding glass accents to many of Sondra Gerber’s designs. You probably recognize Courtney’s name and face from Blue Pom’s facebook live videos as the video producer/engineer, but she also assists Metal Petal in shipping out retail orders that come in from www.metalpetalart.com. She also happens to be Jason’s lovely sister! And Sondra jumps in with any of the above processes and helps the work flow. We are a great team!
Metal Petal branched out beyond wholesale business in 2020. Because of COVID and many galleries across the county being closed, our normal wholesale orders did not come in. However, the owner of local mall Nebraska Crossing received one of Sondra Gerber’s Nebraska ornaments last Christmas, and gave her a call to talk about sculptures at the mall. To date seven large scale sculptures have been completed and can be seen anytime while walking around the beautiful landscaped areas at Nebraska Crossing.