Tina Chisena began making things of metal in the early 1970’s while working full time as a cancer researcher at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. She studied jewelry making, enameling, metalsmithing, and blacksmithing with private instructors, through workshops, and also took courses at Penland, Arrowmont, and Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. She retired from NIH a few months before finishing an MFA in Metalsmithing and Sculpture from Towson University.  Many years earlier she had earned a Bachelor's Degree in Biology from Bard College.  She has taught at Montgomery College, Towson University and Glen Echo Park in Maryland. She occasionally teaches jewelry, enameling, and soldering classes for the Art League in Alexandria, Virginia. Tina has been part of a team of demonstrators at several ABANA Blacksmithing conferences. She has taught at Common Ground on the Hill and has attended Common Ground classes in the past as an aspiring fiddle, mandolin, banjo, and guitar player. Tina is currently the Treasurer of The Enamelists Gallery in Alexandria, and a member of both The Washington Guild of Goldsmiths and the Society of North American Goldsmiths. She is a member of the The Artists-Blacksmiths Association of North America and the Mid-Atlantic Smiths.

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