Headshot of Peggy Silverstein Founder of Lighthorse Design

Peggy Silverstein is a third‑generation artist dedicated to art and education. Her grandmother, Rose Braunstein Wachpress, graduated from Cooper Union in 1915 and later studied engineering during World War II. Her mother taught painting at Florida Southern College, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Peggy earned a Master’s in Art Therapy from Pratt Institute and has continued studying throughout her life: graduate stone carving at Columbia, master carving with Chaim Gross, painting workshops with Everett Raymond Kinstler, Wolf Kahn, and Bert Silverman, eighteen years as a docent at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and ongoing classes at the Art Students League of New York.

She has exhibited in Nantucket and New York City. A love of horses began while riding on Long Island; she paints and sculpts them in many materials. At the Art Students League she moved into metalwork, welding steel after first making a copper horse from plumbing pipe, refrigeration coil, real horse hair, and glass eyes.

In 2020 Peggy founded LightHorse Design, which uses welding and 3D scanning with traditional lost‑wax casting to make bronze and stainless‑steel horse‑head sconces, chandeliers, pendants, lamps, and custom equine lighting. Expanding into reproduction and technical design lets engineering and form‑driven design produce practical, beautiful pieces for horse lovers.

Artist

Pegasus
5’L x 3’H, copper pipes, horse hair, glass

Sculpture of a horse with visible skeletal anatomy made of masony nails on white background made by Peggy Silverstein

Pegasus
12”H x 9”L, steel masonry nails

Welded steel head 17” from forelock to snout

Stainless steel cast with blown glass and electrical

Life size steel horse constructed of elevator compensator chain.

Life size horse head created with elevator compensator chain

Original welded horse head

Bronze sculpture of Chaim Gross head on a black pedestal made by Peggy Silverstein

Chaim Gross
14”H, bronze

Alabaster torso, 13" × 13"X 24”

Decorative American eagle emblem with wings spread, holding a folded American flag made by Peggy Silverstein

Carved wood American Eagle with polychrome and gold leaf 11” X 32”

Process

Every Lighthorse Design piece starts the same way. Raw material, a welding studio, and a clear vision of what it could become.

From that first weld, each sculpture moves through 3D scanning, resin printing, and finally lost wax casting in bronze or stainless steel.

It's a process that borrows from the ancient and modern industry in equal measure, because great craft has always done both.

The artist Peggy Silverstein wearing a welding mask and apron is working on a dog sculpture in a workshop. The sculpture of the dog has a metallic collar, and the artist is welding and soldering.

Direct Glass Blowing

Sculpture Portfolio

A sculpture of a horse made from metallic parts, with a wooden base and black mane and tail.

Copper plumbing parts were used to create this horse with glass eyes, roof flashing, horse hair at Lighthorse Design as a maquette for a large outdoor fountain.

At Lighthorse Design we use a variety of steel materials to express our love of the horse. In this case we used masonry nails and a mig welder to create this maquette that can be cast at any size with 3D technology.

Metal sculpture of a horse with exposed bones and skeletal structure, on a white surface.
Ancient stone sculptures of two horses facing each other, mounted on wooden bases.

Lighthorse Design created moquettes made of concrete. Copper armature was constructed and concrete with a latex additive was applied to facilitate shaping, carving and sanding.

Life size concrete sculpture using these models will be cast in concrete to prevent cracking. The forms can be made using 3D printing and mold making.