Contrast and opposition are cornerstones of Baltimore metalsmith Hilary Hachey’s work. Her Avocado series, of hand-fabricated sterling silver, employs a familiar shape – a bit stouter than a teardrop, sturdier than a petal – to create inventive patterns and wearable forms.

The geometric patterns in Crystal Gregory’s Passage transform themselves from every new angle. The Brooklyn-based artist was inspired by Chicago’s iconic Rookery building and the “visual passageways” she observed in its design.

Oakland, California-based artist and furniture maker Barbara Holmes enjoys transforming and recontextualizing materials, especially the ubiquitous or discarded. Here, lath becomes a spectacularly spiraling installation spanning a 100-foot window space in San Francisco.

Cal Lane trades in contrasts and seeming contradictions. The New York City artist might plasma-cut an oil drum with lacy patterns; these panels, a recent commission for the Metropolitan Transit Authority, are a collision between the industrial and the domestic, function and ornament.

In camouflage, “dazzle” is intense contrast, in repeated strokes or shapes, hitting the eye as an optical illusion. We might rightly call Eleanor McCain’s work dazzling, then, as the Shalimar, Florida, quilt artist riffs on pinwheels and flying geese patterns.

Nesting bowls can take one of two roads: perfectly regular reproductions, or, in the case of Kate Tremel’s work, made sensuous with subtle variation. The Ann Arbor, Michigan, ceramist makes these sleek vessels with a technique she learned in Peru, using a paddle to thin the walls against a stone while turning the pot in her lap.