My collaboration with steel

When I worked with clay, I had complete influence on the material. I could push it with my hands and smooth it with my fingers.
When I worked with wood I was at the mercy of the rigidity of the material. I could not push it around. I could only cut it and carve it.
Forging steel is like forming clay. Steel is much tougher and hotter. I have to make tools to shape it. It has its own agenda. This allows me to be a collaborator with the steel itself. I can move it with a hammer and tooling, but the steel always surprises me. Some of the material will move, some will be left behind. This trait makes the medium perfect for depicting figures. It stretches like skin. It folds and swells like muscle and fat.
We are controlled by our perceptions. Innovation and depredation have propelled us forward as a species. But our greatest strength is the ability to talk each other into things. Humans have an amazing ability to morph and control the way we see things.
My work is an experiment in altering my own perception of what a bar of steel represents.
Can I push this metal around in such a way that when I see it, I see a human figure? How much change do I have to make to the material before I start to believe? How little actual change can I make in the bar and still change my perception?
Steel is common and inexpensive. Steel is a great conductor. Often, we only notice it when it is too cold or too hot. We notice that it is hard and heavy. Mild steel is either black or rusting and often seen as creepy. Pushing back against the macabre character of the medium I want to talk you into seeing the beauty of it. As I design, I balance steel’s heavy presence with space. Pushing it from the outside and then from the inside I watch the steel’s reaction to certain processes. I listen and try to understand the inherent properties of the material and what it wants to say. As I push the material, I push myself and the craft out of its box. My movements become more complex and I begin to see things differently. This broadens the possibilities of form that the steel can take which, in turn again, changes my perception. I follow the shape and feel of the manufactured form through the piece and out the other side. We grow and change together.