I am not an artist. I don't know much of anything about blacksmithing or metal restoration.

But it turns out that doesn't matter if I'm looking to appreciate the offerings of Ann Arbor’s new shop, METAL, just north of downtown on Felch Street. It celebrated its grand opening in April.

METAL is a shop in both senses of the word.

It’s a gallery where people can shop for eclectic art pieces to display. You can find an artist’s rendition of a toolbox for $13,000, or a small secondhand antique-y toolbox for $13.

And it's also a spacious 4,000-square-foot workshop equipped for state-of-the-art metal cutting, vintage car work — even blacksmithing.

The business is multifaceted to say the least.

Owners Claudette Jocelyn Stern and John Daniel Walters call it a gallery, a showroom, a studio, an education facility, a design and fabrication shop, and a creative hub.

And they're ready to tackle anything with metal: Furniture, sculptures, inventions, salvage work — the list goes on.

The back of the shop houses equipment for metal work, including an impressive CNC Plasma Cutter that Stern tells me can be used to cut anything.

In a recent interview, Stern mentioned a potential client who talked to the team about helping to design and build an energy-producing merry-go-round.

“He’s going for two weeks to Liberia, and they are trying to make a playground for kids that generates energy. He picked our brains about how to … come up with components that would be small enough to fit into a suitcase. So were game for … anything,” Stern said. Nearly 500 people came out April 15 to join Walters and Stern at the grand opening of METAL.

Stern is an Ann Arbor native known around the city for her eco-friendly remodeled home called the Nautilus House, and she ranks environmental awareness high among her interests and points out that salvaged metal is an environmentally friendly product for building and for art.

For 13 years, she has been traveling to New Mexico for a yearly iron pour, a popular artist event involving molten iron.

There she met up with Walters, an artist who had also done work focusing on vintage cars, architectural design, and sustainable home and vehicle systems. Walters moved to Michigan to work on a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Michigan, which he completed in 2010.

The two collaborate with Don Billmaier, a stone mason and salvage artist from Toledo, to create and repurpose metal objects. Together they feel like a team of “finders and makers” that use new and old technology to design everything from original sculptures to kitchen sinks.

Since the grand opening, word of the new place has been getting around, according to Stern.

The business' website, metaloffmain.com, does well to describe not just the location, but the owners' frame of mind.

“Metal off Main is due to the fact that we are both off of Main Street, and off the main predilections,” Stern said. But to really get a feel for the shop, Stern encourages people to come out for a visit.

Eventually, the owners hope the space will be used for education and research. Stern envisions classes in metal arts, as well as apprenticeship programs coordinated through the universities. METAL 220 Felch St. Ann Arbor Hours: 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday-Friday, and by appointment

Angela Smith is a freelance contributor to annarbor.com. She can be reached at angieannarbor@gmail.com.