METAL SCULPTURE

In 1971, I began my career in sculpture as a metal sculptor. I had just returned from New York City where I had worked for a small film company as a location and set photographer. A couple of years earlier, a well-known metal sculpture, Fred Wertlieb, had helped me build a “Chopper” (ala, Easy Rider), by welding my creation together. The process of welding and Fred’s own art work, so inspired me, that when I left NYC, I took-up residence in a converted chicken coop in rural Maryland and taught myself the craft of metal sculpting.

Jump to DRAGON-DREAM or WOMEN or RAY GUNS or SEALIFE or SURREAL or DRAGONS or CENTAURS & SATYRS or FANTASY 1 or FANTASY 2 or FLIGHT or WALL HANGINGS or INTERIOR FURNISHINGS

DRAGON-DREAM

Playful erotic fantasy. The dragon is made of steel with a copper crest and nickle-silver claws. The 6 inch woman is steel, with copper hair. The bed is copper and bronze, on a red marble base.

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The “art” part of sculpture came later, for I had no idea about message, style, or content. At the time, all I wanted to do was create beauty and somehow, take cold, hard steel and turn it into something warm, soft, and sensuous. So, of course, I chose the single hardest subject to portray these qualities: the female form.

WOMEN

Sculpting women allowed me to both refine my welding technique, and learn anatomy.

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The tools of a metal sculptor are an oxyacetylene welding setup (a welding torch connected by hoses to a gas-flow regulator attached to Oxygen and Acetylene tanks), and hand tools, like pliers, hammers, saws, metal cutters, etc. Some metal sculptors use electric or air powered machinery, but I chose to remain simple and hardly ever used grinders or presses.

RAY GUNS

These ray guns were sculpted from found objects made of copper, brass, steel, nickle-silver, and other alloys. They’re very much influenced by the halcyon days of early Buck Rogers and other sci-fi magazines and movies.

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Soon after I began, I made the decision to only use the torch to create my forms. By combining metals, melting and twirling them in and about the figures, only color and texture were evident in the finished piece. In less than a year I was able to create a sculpture in metal that appeared to have been cast in a foundry.

SEALIFE

Another couple of years passed before I could make the female form anywhere close to what I had envisioned. This was because I didn’t know anything about anatomy, art or style. I learned all of that at the same time I was perfecting my techniques. The figures in the playful scene are 1/11th scale, or around 6 inches. Their bodies are steel. Her wings are copper with inlaid silver and semi-precious stones. His hair and tail are bronze. The sea is copper on a marble base.

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Throughout the thirteen years I spent as a metal sculptor, I never saw another sculpture that employed the techniques used by Fred Wertlieb and myself. By the nineties, however, some extraordinary sculptors began to create this way, and they were well-rounded artists in style, form, and technique.

SURREAL

A collection of psychological whimsy.

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DRAGONS

All the dragons are made of steel, bronze, copper, with nickle-silver claws. Back in the days I made these creature, dragons still had a strong bent in the fantasy realms, and weren’t as nasty as they are today.