Miles Van Rensselaer using everything from glass and crystal to bronze and iron, from gold and silver to tooth and bone, from steel, copper and lead to wood, clay, feather and hair. He has been fortunate enough to work – and humbled by working – with and among talented artists from all over the world. His work is his homage to these people and their vanishing ways of life, his translation of their technique, imagery, idea of “primitive” art into modern Western materials.

A riot policeman watches as a police vehicle burns in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, South Africa, Tuesday, October 25, 2016. Rioters in South Africa set a police vehicle on fire Tuesday and stoned vehicles near a Johannesburg university that has been the scene of sometimes violent protests by students demanding free education. The violence broke out in streets near the University of the Witwatersrand at around the same time that student protesters met and marched off the campus, South African media reported. (Photo by Yeshiel Panchia/AP Photo)

Carolina Gutierrez (center L), 17, and Neuil Valdez, 18, use mobile phones to connect to the internet at a hotspot in downtown Havana, Cuba, December 12, 2016. (Photo by Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters)

Revellers take part in the Els Enfarinats festival, in the town of Ibi near Alicante, Spain, Saturday December 28, 2019. For about 200-years the inhabitants of Ibi annually celebrate with a battle using flour, eggs and firecrackers, outside the city town hall. (Photo by Alberto Saiz/AP Photo)

Shakira and Jennifer Lopez perform onstage during the Pepsi Super Bowl LIV Halftime Show at Hard Rock Stadium on February 02, 2020 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Mike Blake/Reuters)

A girl looks on after a fire broke out in a slum in Dhaka, Bangladesh, March 11, 2020. (Photo by Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters)

Camila Hormazabal, a 24-year-old sеx worker, meets with a virtual customer in Concepcion, Chile on April 7, 2020. Hormazabal now offers sеxual services online after the nightclub where she had worked was closed due to the outbreak. With no way to pay her bills, Hormazabal switched to video calls conducted from her high-rise apartment bedroom, and asked her regulars to meet her online. She is one of the thousands of sеx workers worldwide left in a precarious position after the very intimacy that defines their work was thwarted by social distancing measures. (Photo by Juan Gonzalez/Reuters)

A tourist gets an “Art Hug” from a disinfected costumed man outside the reopened Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Monday, June 1, 2020. The government takes a major step to relax the coronavirus lockdown, with bars, restaurants, cinemas and museums reopening under strict conditions. (Photo by Peter Dejong/AP Photo)