June, 2026

Piecing Together the Amanda Puzzle
Lexington Sculptor Amanda Matthews

By Nancy Barr
Contributing Writer

A discreet sign bearing the Prometheus Studio logo marks my arrival at the farm near Lexington, Kentucky, where the artist Amanda Matthews lives and works with her business/creative partner and husband, Brad Connell. Amanda and Brad are the CEO and COO, respectively, of the design/build firm and foundry where they produce large-scale sculpture and public art. It is Brad’s sculptured steel gate that ushers me onto the wooded property, and a short distance away stands a handsome modern house. Amanda springs out of the front door to tell me that their large, but very well-trained dog Ingot, would like to say hello. From my first step into the foyer, I am in a museum-like space filled with contemporary art — much of it the work of Amanda and Brad. Large windows bring in light and scenery, and color and shape coexist beautifully in a high-ceilinged open-plan great room radiating from a galley kitchen.

I do not have long to contemplate my surroundings, however. Appetizers have been laid out on a long dining table set at a diagonal to the kitchen. “We love to feed people,” was the wording that came with my invitation to visit Prometheus, and here I am, enjoying homemade herbal tea and deviled duck eggs, the latter courtesy of the family of ducks they keep as pets. Towards the end of lunch, we catch sight of the mother fox and kits that Amanda is feeding in a daily bargain to keep the ducks safe. 

I discover during lunch that Amanda can talk! A professional public speaker, she moves easily between myriad topics: herbal medicine (she is a certified practitioner), construction (she and Brad designed and built the house themselves), philosophy, feminism, queer theory, and politics. “At heart, I am a storyteller,” she explains, almost in apology. Hours have passed as if they were minutes, and it’s clear I’ll need to come back to the farm for a tour of the foundry. Feeling ever so slightly over-stimulated, I depart, escorted to my car by Ingot, who likes to see people out.

On my second trip to Prometheus, I am treated to a tour of the studio and foundry, housed in a musty barn divided into various work areas. The operation is impressive: Brad demonstrates heating up the crucible furnace, and Amanda outlines the choreography of each member of the team, which, when they are casting metal, includes their two children, Audrey and Natalie, and Amanda’s assistants, Roger and Richard. For me, it is thrilling to simply look around the studio and catch sight of the tabletop maquette of Amanda’s monument, The Girl Puzzle, quietly gathering dust, and to walk by the towering clay molds of its five female heads.

There are layers of poetic justice to the fact that The Girl Puzzle, Matthews' tour de force installation on New York City’s Roosevelt Island, turned out to be the artist’s breakout accomplishment. Dedicated in 2021, TGP is the acclaimed sculpture commemorating the feminist and 19^th-century investigative journalist Nellie Bly, whose accomplishments include exposing the inhumane incarceration of women and children in New York’s Blackwell asylum, the former name of Roosevelt Island. Elizabeth Jane Cochran took her slyly subversive pen name from a Stephen Foster minstrel song Nelly Bly. Bly began her improbable and influential journalism career at 21, in a pivot from thwarted plans to become a teacher. “I said I could and I would. And I did,” was the 24-year-old seasoned journalist’s pronouncement upon completing a 72-day trip around the world that was inspired by Jules Verne’s Phileas Fogg. 

Borrowing the title of Bly’s very first newspaper article and inspired by the journalist’s exposé, Ten Days in a Mad-House, The Girl Puzzle reflects the power of empathy to change and heal the world. Through her representation of these specific stories of struggle and survival, Amanda’s art gives us access to the universal.

Amanda Matthews so embodies the energy, ambition, and grit that are synonymous with our American heroes that she is like a natural resource or a treasured example of Americana — in Doc Martens. Take a girl from a small town, give her access to enough education to recognize her native intelligence, the opportunity to leave that place and experience the wider world — and she will do the rest. And yet, there was nothing inevitable about Amanda’s success, whether in business, public speaking, or in the highly competitive world of sculpture and public art. 

In 2019, dejected after the unsuccessful pursuit of a public art commission in Lexington, Amanda stumbled upon an international competition for the Nellie Bly monument. Practically on a dare from her teenage daughter, she submitted her proposal, made the cut as one of seven, then three finalists, and won unanimous approval after her presentation to the selection committee. The Girl Puzzle monument is one of the highest budget public art projects awarded to a woman artist in this country, and it has garnered worldwide attention for its scope and accessibility. Amanda Matthews does not take any of this success for granted, and like the intrepid Nellie Bly, she has chosen a path requiring strength and dedication. 

A second hometown rejection came in 2024 following her proposal for a “Lexington 250” monument in downtown Lexington.