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Metal art is not only beautiful to look at, it is fun to make. Metal sculpture is something that people don’t think about a lot, but almost everyone has elements of in their lives. Whether it is an artfully put together lamp, a piece of metal garden art such as a wrought iron fountain, or a precious keepsake in your house, there’s probably some place where metal art is prominent.

I first became interested in the metal arts at a young age. We were actually doing wire sculpture as a school activity. Although today’s litigious society would frown on a bunch of elementary school kids doing sculpture with wire – after all, you can poke yourself with wire – back then, it was a perfectly acceptable craft activity to do. Most of the kids found it frustrating, but I thought it was absolutely fascinating. I had a lot of fun making a metal giraffe out of wire, and was reluctant to put it down when the activity was over. As a matter of fact, I was so interested in metal art that my parents got me some more wires to work on sculpture at home.

Soon, I discovered that there were plenty of other metal arts that were within the abilities of a kid of my age. My parents trusted me more than perhaps they should have. I remember getting cut several times using tin snips to cut aluminum cans up. Nevertheless, I made quite a bit of metal wall art that year. I made little figurines that my parents could hang up around the house, as well as presents for my friends to give to them on their birthday parties. I was becoming so good, in fact, that my parents signed me up for metal art classes.
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