Chromium — Emily A Baker

Concentrations of Chromium and Other Forgotten Things

While a majority of my recent work has been about the rise and fall of the U.S. steel manufacturing industry, this exhibition focuses on how it has changed on a material level. The work is meant to honor our industrial past while also actively re-envisioning its future. While in residence at The Steel Yard, I created a new body of work to investigate the worker’s role within manufacturing in relation to technology and trade. Using a combination of chromium imagery, cast iron, porcelain, chiffon, and a reference to plastic packaging, I reflect upon the fragility of industry and the economic and evident seismic shifts that will define the future of work.

The work in this exhibition is a response to archives and objects recovered from Al Tech Specialty Steel Corporation in Watervliet, New York and hoist hooks from Providence Steel and Iron Company in Providence, Rhode Island.

Liquid Alloys

chiffon on steel, 2019

From left to right:
Carbon Steel
General structure of low alloy steels. Reveals prior austenite grain boundaries and bainitic structures. Micro appearance of what appears to be unmelted alloy in center of bar end.
This metallographic work was performed in December 1960.

Photomicrographs of unetched structure in center of macro etched disks which showed “porosity”.
As may be noted, defects are actual cracks or voids associated with carbide segregations.
This metallographic work was performed in July 1961.

High chromium segregation in the center of 1” round bar stock which indicates excessive concentration of chromium in this area. Microstructure indicates it is concentration of ferro-alloy, possibly ferro-chrome, which has not fully dissolved into the parent metal.
This metallographic work was performed in September 1959.

-Text from Allegheny-Ludlum Metallurgy Department