Angie West

An inclination toward visual composition led her to photography, where she spent ten years shooting commercially in the design sphere. Her personal photographic style however is journalistic, having been deeply inspired by the incomparable work of Sebastião Salgado, Larry Towell, and Mary Ellen Mark among other masters who have captured the essence and complexities of living.

An alumni of Vanderbilt University with degrees in Fine Art and Organizational Development, she began her professional life working with Holly Hunt, overseeing marketing, art direction, and eventually the product design studio.

In 2010 she purchased a small foundry in Chicago and renamed it West Supply in honor of her family’s 1940’s army surplus store in West Texas. She and the unparalleled consortium of talent at WS have since established an internationally respected foundry and glassworks studio, where they have cultivated relationships with designer clients Paul Mathieu, Ty Best of Caste Design, and Anna Karlin among many others.

They have been honoured to realize many commissions for Theaster Gates, William J. O’Brien, Sanford Biggers and other artists also making significant cultural impact while breaking boundaries in theory and process.

Born and raised in rural West Texas, Angie lives in Oak Park with her bulldogs, Refractory’s deputies, Chevy, Levi and Bodine.