Another recurring theme in my work, besides the small figures and the bustiers, are the 'Faces'.

I call them faces for want of a better word... they are not usually full heads, and they are not portraits or masks. These life-size pieces hang on the wall, full face or in profile, and become a vehicle for an artistic statement.

Some are literal images. Some lie on their backs and become islands or mountains, some are suns, or moons, or stars.

Birds and flying images evolve quite often, steel feathers abound. I create the faces by building a skeletal framework using thin steel rod. I then drip steel onto the surface, slowly building the features. At this point I grind it down and weld again, correcting and correcting as I go. I never quite know 'who' I am dealing with until the elements are complete. But it is so pleasing when the character emerges, an individual waiting to be acknowledged.

Hand-building steel sculpture is a time-consuming and exacting job. People often say that they would like to watch me work. But the work is so slow that often to others it appears that no progress has been made at all. For me, each square inch is a victory.

Wingy

To explain this sculpture would be impossible... it IS really a flight of fancy, which for me describes those days when one's mind goes in all directions, and anything is possible.

This sculpture is created, as are many of the faces in my work, using a skeletal structure which I create of welded steel rod.

I build the life-size head on that, using drips of molten steel, and an oxy-acetylene torch. I then grind the surface of the piece to correct and refine the features. It is slow and painstaking, but the effect is soft and pleasing, unlike the common description of 'hard cold steel'.

The feathers are made of steel sheet, shaped and cut by hand.

The Garden Pharoah

The Black-eyed Susan is a persistent and vigorous plant. It is often a field flower, flourishing in poor soil, with very few pests to damage its golden petals.

I decided to make garden implements, a shovel and a trowel, part of this sculptural mask, and used steel rod dripped and welded to form the facial features. The black eyed Susan petals in this case are brass, which I have engraved.

This is a life-size head, a wall sculpture.

When she was a child, my sister always took offense to the fact that there were phrases like "Black-eyed Susan" and "Lazy Susan", which society seemed to casually condone. She, being a strong-minded Susan herself, did not accept the negative connotation, and actually took it very personally. As her sibling, it was a very handy thing to tease her about. Rudbeckia Hirta. I wish I'd known the Latin name then.

As I stood back from this finished piece, I knew that I could tell my sister that she could stop complaining now. The roots of the Black-eyed Susan obviously stem from the gardens of Ancient Egypt.

For inquiries, contact Penny Varney Gallery 705.687.8078, or info@pennyvarneygallery.com.



The Vegetarian

It is a riot of fruits and vegetables of every description; carrots, eggplant, apples, cabbage leaves, leeks, bananas, and pears, among others.

Then, one discovers a wheat stem in a mouth, and suddenly the whole piece takes on a persona. That is when you see the eyes and the cheeks of the mask.

The colours that you see in this sculpture are not painted colours. I used the pallette of shades that occur when different metals are heated and cooled: the yellows are brass, the reds, oranges and purples are copper, and the silvers and blues are steel.

The Vegetarian is the winner of the 2009 Margot Bindhart Award in the 2009 Fine Arts Showcase at the Royal Winter Fair.







Georgia On My Mind

My passion for poppies prompted this poetic piece.

Georgia O'Keeffe loved them as well.

Often people who view this wall sculpture do not see the face incorporated into the shapes.

The petals of the poppy are paper-thin sheets of copper, torch coloured. The pistils and stamen, and the face, are of welded steel.