“Big Water Bottle Basket”  steel, enamel

My work is situated around the visual phenomena of patterning and mark-making fused with the use of pre and post-consumer manufacturing materials. Through rhythm and repetition I create installations, objects and works on paper. Running through my work is a genuine interest in the inherent qualities of a material and the extent to which I can exploit it for making art. Rather than relying on intuitive approaches to art making I have a set of systems I apply to the materials at hand. These systems include but are not limited to weaving, welding, stacking, arranging, mold making and creating compositional elements. Big Water Bottle is comprised of thousands of discarded steel spikes, which have been welded together one at a time to create the form. The sculpture was created as a meditation on the portable consumer fetish object of the water bottle and the significant role that baskets played in the gathering of water in early cultures. 

 James Burnes
Santa Fe, NM

“Rich Sis”, steel, wood

The focus of my career has become to create pieces that are both abstracted and representational. This piece strives to capture the energy of an individual horse named “Laura’s Ego.” Once prime and trim, she now spends her time as a brood mare, out to pasture in New Mexico. With her racing days finished, her body no longer has the tone it once did; her powerful frame and graceful nature are reflected within.
From afar the piece appears natural and lifelike. A proud, upright pose invites the viewer closer, where a series of abstract forms are juxtaposed with a variety of textures, negative spaces, and dissecting planes. The final composite encourages the viewer to explore new visual perspectives.
I combine organic materials with hand formed steel to create these animals. The steel is a material highly processed by man, while tree trunks are a product of the earth. The contrast between the materials reflects the enormity of their distinct formations. Each patina will change with the environment; earth tones will deepen and contrast. Time changes this sculpture as it changes us all.
My hope is to inspire a different way of seeing.  

Samuel Burns
Chattanooga, TN
 

“Boxes in a Box”, aluminum

Originally trained in photography, over the years, sculpture has become the focus of my art work. My interest is in the interaction of abstract forms, whether natural, animal or human. Aluminum is my choice of media but also work with steel, wood and stone. The process of cutting and welding abstract shapes into 3-dimensional forms is very personal and gratifying. To let the work flow through your mind and into the work is pure energy. Working in both media is similar in that light and shadows play an important part in the appearance and feel of the work.

A non-conformist by nature, I choose not to create art that is of the latest trend or style. My art is not viewed as contemporary by those who are considered professional in art. My art has a style that is individualistic, truly unique and more in the lines of Da Vinci with its hidden messages created to force the viewer to use their mind and begin a journey into thought.
It is not the artist who creates the art…it is the essence of the art within which creates the artist.
The Art of Steeling is not unlike Alchemy. It is a joining of metals, mathematics, music and science. With the right combination of ingredients, the elusive Philosopher’s Stone can be created. All of my pieces are based on Symbology and Crytology. Every one of my pieces has a hidden code or symbol. In addition, my art is also based on Music and the complex structures of Mathematics within some forms of Music composed by Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Mozart, Tchaikovsky and Hans Zimmer just to name a few. Every piece of art has a story to tell. I hope that you are just as entertained viewing my art as I am creating it.
Remember, if you do not let the music out…….no one will hear it!

“Cathedral Arch” steel

Art is the free exchange of ideas, thoughts and passions experienced by society. 

“Thoughts Running Like a River” aluminum

As an artist, I see to create order in the world using a visual vocabulary of form, line, color, and physical materials.
Being human, I spend much of my time with my thoughts ruminating, running in and out of my interior landscape; and yet I live in a physical world dependent on time and materials.
This series of energy sculptures portray the linear connections between the world below, the subconscious, and the world above the surface.
Thoughts Running Like a River is on in a series of painted aluminum energy sculptures seeming to move in and out of the ground.
My thoughts move like a river through the landscape of my mind. My daydreams are hard to isolate. I try to watch the idea move over the surface of my mind until it disappears underground, out of site. Sometimes it re-emerges later more clearly developed. Memories rush around, over and through me; musings hide or drown in my emotions or get lost in other reflections.
Martin Burber’s metaphor of “the ground of one’s being” speaks to who I am, the part of me that’s separate from my thoughts. Ruminating on how great or how wrong I am could define me but I believe I am actually distinct from these judgmental thoughts.
Thoughts Running Like A River depicts the oscillating relationship between the “ground of my being” and the constantly changing, fluid thoughts inside my mind.  

“Suffering Passes, Having Suffered Never Passes; In Living, Loss and Rebirth Enfold One Another” oak

The sculpture is dedicated to those who mourn losses in war, genocide, and political terrorism. The piece is conceived from the point of view of the viewer… those who have suffered the loss.
This is one of five pieces originally proposed to honor the “desaparecidos” in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Its meaning has expanded to embrace the more specific contemporary losses from 9/11 and the Iraq war.
The installation is both commemorative and unifying. It consists of one complete bench and five sharply cut fragments of benches sited in a 15 foot concentric, yet open, oval. The contrasting elements – one whole and complete, the others torn and ripped are testimony to the sudden loss experienced by the survivors.
Viewers are encouraged to sit in the piece. The bench and remains have a curving, enveloping form bringing participants together, recognizing the unspeakable loss of the victims… and the hopefulness of joining with others to find resolution.
The elements encourage an interaction, a ‘joining together’. Places to sit among them are “missing”—“disappeared”—to honor those who are not there and to acknowledge their missing voices.
In form and shape, the benches are a series of three dimensional, gestural strokes, as if from the ink of a calligraphy brush in the Japanese enso circle form. The strokes enwrap each other like an embrace and hold the viewers within them. The circle form suggests both emptiness and completion – inclusion and universality – emptiness and nothingness.  

“Wave Form #5” reclaimed dock boards

Wave Forms are a series of work derived fro re-claimed dock boards. Although these are straight pieces of wood, their arrangements create curvilinear spiraling shapes. They demonstrate the invisible force of the wind as it shapes the water and land around us.  

Roger Halligan
Chattanooga, TN 

“Ollie’s Buoy” steel and concrete

I call my new series of sculpture “Safety First, the Land Buoys”. They are influenced by my love of Neolithic standing stones I’ve seen in Ireland, Scotland, and m recent life changing move to downtown Chattanooga, from rural North Carolina. Railroad track markers and crossings, river buoys and other non verbal warnings are a larger part of my daily existence. My new sculptures reflect that. I believe they may even function in some similar manner to the ancient megaliths that fascinate me so. They go beyond the activation of space and designation of place and represent directions and cautionary tales.
Joseph Campbell in his Mythos lecture series is quoted, “Don’t ask an artist the meaning of his work. If an artist wants to insult you they will tell you.” My work has no single meaning and I have no intention of insulting the viewer.
I make my art with steel and concrete. The constraints and freedoms of our culture make these materials available, accessible and as reasonable for me to use as were the giant stones used to make my Neolithic ancestors at sites like Carnec, Avebury, Stonehenge. My need for making these works is similar I feel to those of my Neolithic ancestors. It is about creating an object that not only activates our sensual, physical environment but also invites the viewer to respond to and discover whatever meanings they might find through the associations they make with it.  

Hanna Jubran
Grimesland, NC

“Personal Space” steel

Corrina Sephora Mensoff
Atlanta, GA

“Where I have come from, what will I leave behind?” steel and cast iron

This sculpture represents my love of travel on the surface of the water, the buoyancy of boats, while reflecting on life and its experiences. The structure has an interior stenciled shadow of a silhouette, placing the past and future possibilities of a presence at rest.

“Triangle Tango” steel

With a filmmaker’s eye and a welder’s arc, I bring light, motion, and mass to my work. I use steel, stone, recycled materials and concrete as the building blocks to frame objects and images, and to direct or reflect light. I contrast weathered and polished, dark and light, mass and space. I often work in four dimensions, allowing time to show the kinetic aspects of a piece. Coming from a cinematic background, I feel that motion is critical, whether it be the intrinsic movement within the work, or the movement the observer brings to the work.
While my earlier sculptures used other metal joining and soldering techniques, now the processes of welding have allowed my dreams to soar. I enjoy the fabrication as much as the design, and usually refine the concept during construction. In the end, I feel there is some if “Vulcan’s power” in my work.

“Ker-Plunk” steel

The majority of my sculpture is concept driven and is highly viewer interactive. My concepts are usually derived from some memory that was stirred by the shape of some found object, or from some memento that I have held on to since childhood. These things bring up thoughts and experiences that challenge me and guide me through the creative process.
There are interactive elements in much of my work that are often derived from my love of escapism, toys, comic books, and pop-culture icons. My outdoor sculptures that are brightly painted are designed to attract the viewer’s attention and convey an opportunity for escapist fantasy and viewer interaction.
Though my sculpture entitled Ker-Plunk is not one of my interactive pieces, it still holds great meaning for me. I often use the stylized and anthropomorphized image of an oversized toy tank to represent myself. Ker-Plunk is symbolic of my attempts in like and art that have simply gone ker-plunk, as this toy tank simply drops its cannon ball and watches as it bounces and rolls away. This might sound funny to some, but just as the case is wit this piece, even where I have a ker-plunk moment, I still know that I had a good time getting there.