So I try really hard - sometimes maybe too hard - to be as abstract as possible while still maintaining some semblance of the principles of design. There is usually direction, movement, hard and soft edges. But once something appears representational, well, that’s when I go back to the drawing board.

With this piece, it really started out as a material/technique study. The shop at Silvermine gets cold in the winter, and we were using the forge a lot. I had some stainless angle iron that I didn’t know what to do with so we stuck it in the forge and then twisted it. Which was a really crazy thing in and of itself - bending metal. Yeah, I’ve bent and formed rebar with a torch before, but this was taking it to the next level. The metal undergoes some big changes when it gets that hot, yet, when it cools, it’s solid, stoic, unmoving again. And that’s what I love about metal, that it can be so unforgiving. It can hurt you. It doesn’t care.

I had these two pieces of angle that were now irreparably altered. If you’re familiar with my previous work, I really like straight lines. The twists and bends were unfamiliar. I think I ignored them for a while.

They were standing up by themselves next to each other, and really came off as towers. Or figures. Both things I wanted to avoid, but, eventually, there comes a time when you really ought to walk past that line you drew for yourself. I’m not sure if the “best things” happen outside one’s comfort zone. Maybe it’s okay to be comfortable and do what you know. Regardless. my first thought was to express them as having something to do with 9/11. But I had a hard time figuring out what to say, and I really did not want to be intentionally vague and let the viewer figure it out.

Long story short, I’m still not sure what they’re supposed to do. Only one side of the metal is finished, while the interior is still scorched from the forging process. Despite what we may look like on the outside, we’re all unfinished on the inside. We are all works in progress. We all have ugly parts.

Another wild thing that happened with this piece was the incorporation of wood - something I really hate working with. And yet, the base is a beautiful piece of cherry (I had a lot of help with the fabrication of the base; thank you Mark Andreas) that I really think completes the piece.

So, when all the components are apart, they really aren’t that interesting. Two twisted pieces of metal and a hunk of wood. But together, they create something more. Separated, they literally cannot stand.

And neither can we. With that, I will leave you to ponder what’s important to believe in your life.