Stephanie Mercedes was preparing for her next exhibition when she received a quote last month from her Maryland steel supplier. The price of sheet metal had tripled since her last order.
“I like using steel plates in a lot of my work because it’s a very resonant metal and it’s percussive,” she told Hyperallergic. “But I was really shocked when they told me the number last time.”
The Washington, DC-based sculptor had incorporated steel plates, rods, and melted-down weapons into an installation that is currently suspended from the atrium of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. Now Mercedes wants to build a series of hydraulic hammers that would strike bells made out of smashed bullets, creating a symphony of industrial-sounding techno beats. But the cost of her new project has risen considerably, and she is rethinking her plans.
“Sheet metal is very affordable, really easy to work with, and a way for sculptures to get big really fast,” she said. “If anything, it might affect the scale that I can work in.”
Artists have been bracing for higher prices on their materials since President Trump threatened to impose tariffs on dozens of countries shortly after he was sworn into office. Trump initially singled out steel and aluminum imports for a 25% levy, which caused prices to begin surging in February.
But the Trump administration’s uneven rollout has roiled markets and frustrated suppliers. The president’s 145% excise on Chinese-made goods slowed down international shipments to US ports, sparking fears of shortages and forcing the administration to backtrack in May by announcing a 90-day pause and lowering the rate to 30%.
Some arts suppliers have been preparing to pass the costs of tariffs on to their consumers. Canal Plastics Center, a plastics fabrication company in SoHo, raised their prices by about 10 to 15% last month, a spokesperson for the store said. Brooklyn’s Pier Glass, which does commissions for artists, designers, and architects, has been warned of likely price increases from suppliers for their glass batch and color materials that come from Canada and Europe.
“They did not tell us when. How can they? They don’t really know either,” said one manager at Pier Glass who declined to be identified. “There’s no blame here. We’re going to have these increases and it will affect what we do.”
Others are holding the line for now. “Eventually we might have to raise prices for things, but right now we’re working with what we have and trying not to transfer that over to our students,” said Aullar Mateo, education manager at UrbanGlass. The glass-blowing studio in downtown Brooklyn has seen a 10% increase in the price for its imported grit and pigments and expects the amount to go up.
Long Island City’s Lenoble Lumber hasn’t experienced price hikes from its US vendors but was closely tracking the price of Chinese plywood, which is about 30% cheaper than American products.
“If the Chinese material became almost as expensive as domestic plywood, that just makes things more difficult for customers with a very limited budget,” Denia Velez, a sales associate at Lenoble Lumber, said. “Then they stop buying.”
A handful of high-end American craftspeople may be benefitting from the Trump-initiated trade war. Paige Tooker, founder of a Newburgh-based art foundry, acknowledged that she has received an increase in orders from artists who had been casting their bronze sculptures in China. Her prices had been three or even four times higher for most large projects, but new tariffs have made the cost almost equivalent and artists don’t face the risk of having their work stuck in a container terminal at a Chinese port.
“A lot of artists were casting in China and they are canceling their overseas orders,” Tooker said.
But the tariffs have mostly created uncertainty for artists and arts organizations. Some who have accepted public commissions, which can take more than a year to complete, told Hyperallergic they are redesigning their artworks because the tariffs put their project over budget. One artist said a residency she was curating was almost canceled because of the costs associated with tariffs before they were able to negotiate their finances.
Artists are making hard choices about their practice, too. Some are splurging now to stockpile supplies until prices fall while others are evaluating whether they should buy less, use different materials, or work at a smaller scale.
Brooklyn artist MaryKate Maher had bought plenty of aluminum from her Midwest suppliers to make enough sculptures and wall collages for her exhibit at KALINER gallery on the Lower East Side. She wants to make larger sculptures in the future but that could become more difficult if the cost of aluminum continues to grow.
“I could go back to some research and development and find other materials I would work with, but that takes a little more time because you have to experiment and find other suppliers,” she said. “Artists are resourceful and creative — but it depends on what this will look like.”