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Calgary, Alberta — shipping worldwide

Small worlds,
hung in tension.

Umbilicus: Equilibrium defined as the minimum required tension to stop growth, remaining tethered to the absolute.

Copper bonsai suspended above a chained lantern set in stone
Umbilicus Copper · Steel · Stone
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Selected work

Every piece is
one of one.

No moulds, no runs, no second edition. Copper is wound by hand a strand at a time; steel is cut, heated and bent until it sits the way it should. Look closely — there is almost always someone living in there.

From the shop floor

The signature piece

Umbilicus

An island torn loose and held above a fire it can never reach. The chain is not decoration — it is the whole argument. Cut it and the world floats away; shorten it and nothing can grow. What is left is the exact tension between the two.

Every piece we build carries a brass plate, struck with the studio mark and the line the work is named for.

  • MaterialsCopper, steel, cast stone
  • BuildHand-wound & forged
  • EditionOne of one
  • MarkedEngraved brass plate

1 of 1

Every piece

2

Makers, no crew

100%

Built by hand

Worldwide

Crated & shipped

Commission process

Bring us an idea. Leave with an object.

Architectural commissions, corporate concepts, gallery installations, or one strange thing for the corner of your living room. Three steps to a real number.

Set the budget

A range beats a number. Tell us what you’d like to work within and we scale the piece — size, material, complexity — to fit it honestly, instead of quoting you a surprise.

Gather the pieces

Photos of the wall, the room, the lobby, the plinth. Any sketches or drawings, however rough. A couple of lines on what you want it to feel like. That is genuinely enough to start.

Send it over

Text everything to 1-403-999-9486 or use the form below. We read it, come back with questions, and talk through what it takes to build.

The two makers behind Twisted Friends holding a suspended island sculpture

The studio

Two people,
one bench.

Twisted Friends is a two-man custom metalworks shop in Calgary. Between us it’s welding, forging, casting, wiring and a great deal of squinting at things under a lamp at two in the morning.

We take the commissions we can do properly and we build them ourselves, start to finish. When a piece leaves here it’s crated by the same hands that made it — and it goes anywhere in the world.

Start a piece

Tell us what
you want to make.

Budget range, a couple of photos, and what it’s for. We answer every enquiry ourselves — usually within a day or two.

Prefer to text? Photos and sketches go straight to 1-403-999-9486.