After many years of woodworking and cabinet making, I wanted to experiment with a new medium. In 1995, on a whim I took an art welding class at Ghost Ranch, an arts and education center in northern New Mexico. The experience opened a new world of creativity and freedom of expression. What began as a whim has become a passion.
It may seem strange, but trips to the scrap yards are the source of my artistic inspiration. The first step in my artistic process is finding the material for my pieces. I comb scrap yards and other sites for abandoned metal. The metal scrap I find suggests the eventual sculpture. Unlike other kinds of art form, I am limited to the material before me. I do not use new material, nor do I shape or change the pieces I use. I sometimes feel like a pianist whose keyboard has only a few keys. I enjoy that challenge of working with what is “given” to me.
The next step involves finding the aesthetic relationship among certain pieces so that the final product will have integrity, interest and balance. Each piece of scrap has a specific relationship to the other pieces, and each contributes to the whole. Working with found objects can often result in a “hodge podge” of unrelated parts. I strive to find ways of arranging the pieces so that a theme emerges and the work has a unity.
The final step in my process is welding the parts together. This can be difficult and unpredictable. The heat of welding can change the color of a piece of scrap. Or, the slightest shift in the joint of two pieces can make the difference between a piece working or not.
I enjoy bonding pieces of scrap that come from totally different origins. I believe in recycling wherever possible, and it is satisfying to give new life to what otherwise would sit in a landfill or scrap yard. Whether indoors or outdoors, each sculpture is a permanent, solid piece that reminds us of the potential for power and beauty in the most ordinary objects.
Jeff Smith
