I took a sculpture class in college and was immediately hooked. It’s weird—I had never actually thought of sculpture as something that ‘regular’ artists do. Something that I could do. Of course, the drawback with sculpture is that the pieces tend to take up a lot of space. Drawings and paintings are Much easier to store! Sadly, it’s the lack of space—both for working and for storage—that I still find problematic and which limits the amount of sculptural work that I make. To get around this, I frequently create ‘paintings’ that are fairly three-dimensional and sculptural, but that’s a topic for a different day.

Today, I want to share with you one of the pieces that I created in my sculpture class. This is “Manhattan.” He’s based on an Egyptian vulture (mostly because I thought they looked pretty cool) and was inspired by a visit to New York City. I remember feeling like all the big tall buildings were constantly looking over me, waiting to attack. (Can you tell I’m not really a fan of big cities?)  I apologize for the quality of the image–digital cameras weren’t very good back when this was taken. I’ll have to see if I can get a new photo at some point. Manhattan still lives in my mother’s garage!

Manhattan is a little over 4 feet tall and was my first foray into welding. I learned a lot making him! It gave me a whole different way of thinking about my work, with the structural elements and the decorative elements and how to combine them efficiently and effectively. Manhattan has a metal rod framework with thin gauge sheet steel pieces attached to the framework using wire. I initially tried to weld the sheet steel to the rod, but that’s Incredibly difficult to do with 24 gauge steel sheet. Beyond the scope of my welding abilities, at least. I used a torch to cut the ‘feathery’ shapes and was fascinated at how the heat of the torch produces different colors in the steel.  A couple random things I learned while learning to weld: duct tape makes a great third hand. But it smells Terrible when it melts! And you can smell your leather glove burning before you feel the heat. Move your hand away quickly and you won’t get burned.

I’d love to try welding again sometime. What about you? Are there any mediums you’ve secretly always wanted to try? Or ones you’ve been afraid to try? Give it a go—you just might surprise yourself!