As I work on this essay it seems wrong of me not to mention my art when talking about my writing. Writing and art are one in the same to me; they both are expressions of the need to create and translate my own thoughts into a palatable and understandable form. My journey with art mirrors my experience with writing almost to a T. As a child I drew and painted constantly, sometimes illustrating poems or stories and sometimes to create a stand-alone work. I enjoyed art classes from elementary through middle school, but was unable to take art in high-school. I went to a very small high-school so there was only one section of every class and all art classes took place in the last period of the day. I was in Jazz band, which also took place in the last period of the day, and my advisor was the band director; I didn’t feel comfortable dropping band to take an art class, especially since junior and senior year I was the only trombonist in the band. Art was lost to me for a few years, but I found my way back to it in college.
I learned how to weld when I was 14 to help my uncle fix tractor parts. Shortly after that I took a welding course at The Steel Yard to hone my rough metal working skills. During the course my instructor recommended I take a weekend blacksmithing workshop. The workshop consisted of 12 hours of instruction split between a Saturday and Sunday afternoon focussed on learning the basics of forging steel. I was already fascinated by the processes of connecting steel with welding and cutting a shaping steel with oxy-acetylene and other tools, but the blacksmithing course blew me away. I was no longer restricted to simply cutting and piecing steel together, I could take a piece of metal and forge it into any shape I would think of.
Monica’s welding course was centered around learning basic metal working skills while completing some sort of project. For my project I decided to build a forge. A forge is in essence a propane powered oven that is used to heat metal to a malleable temperature. As simple as the concept is building a safe and functional forge is a complicated task, I wasn’t able to finish mine during Monica’s course, so I signed up for her next one. I was already ahead of the curve when took Monica’s first intro course so when I re-enrolled in it I essentially was free to work on my forge while I she taught the new students. When I had breaks in my work I functioned as a TA of sorts, assisting the other students, and Monica had me teach them some basic blacksmithing since I had shown to be somewhat of a natural at it.
Metal is now my preferred medium as an artist. Along with my forge I have accumulated a great deal of various tools and have a fully functioning metal shop that I move between my garage in the summer and the sculpture studio at Lafayette in the school year.
I participated in the first gallery showing of my work a few weeks ago. Instead of a final the students in Materials and Methods are given a section of the Portlock Gallery and tasked with curating the space. I was given a six ft. wide section of wall with an eight ft. ceiling. Most of my work is too big to be either housed or properly showcased in space of that size so I decided to build a sculpture that utilized every inch of space I was given. The result was Legacy.
I am currently in the process of selling Legacy to a local gallery owner who took an interest in the piece when he visited the show. This is the first time I ever thought seriously about anyone buying my work and suddenly the choice of art and writing over engineering seems to be justified. Below is a gallery of some of my other pieces, both metal and otherwise.
