(inquisitive music) >> Steve: It is important to tell a direct message, and that's why my work is called Metal Health Artwork.

So I've been suffering for years.

I didn't have an outlet, I didn't have a healthy way to deal with it, so I began to create this stuff, and that actually opened me up to conversations with the veteran community and the regular artist community at large.

>> Aubrey: It's just a blessing, you know, to have somebody come to you to you to do something that we get to build from nothing, pretty much, with our hands.

>> Brian: But in the end, when you have that car done and the client loves it and other people are just like, "Oh, my God," nothing better.

>> Madison: The saying goes, "By hammer and hand, all crafts do stand."

So there was a point in time where the tailor needed a pair of scissors or a needle, they had to go to the blacksmith.

Farmer needs a scythe sharpened, blacksmith.

Everything was centralized around that smithy.

>> Eric: The sculptures in a lot of ways aren't really complete until they find their way out, and whether it's in a gallery space or on the street corner, I'm trying to make the objects in such a way that they garner a response.

The thing that's most frustrating is when you see someone walk by one of your sculptures, and they don't even look at it, you know?

Then it's like going, "Oh, I failed."

>> Dale: Doing as much as you can as quickly as you can is important to me.

(uplifting music) Life is short, and the earlier we get started helping our community, the better off our community will be.

>> Announcer: Family, home, work, self, of all the things you take care of, make sure you are near the top of the list.

North Shore Health Centers offers many services to keep you balanced and healthy.

So take a moment, self-assess, and put yourself first.

From medical to dental, vision, chiropractic, and mental health, North Shore will help get you centered.

You help keep your world running, so make sure to take care of yourself.

North Shore Health Centers, building a healthy community, one patient at a time.

(bright music) >> Announcer: "Eye on the Arts" is made possible in part by South Shore Arts, the John W. Anderson Foundation, and the Indiana Arts Commission, making the arts happen.

Additional support for Lakeshore Public Media and local programming is made possible by viewers like you.

Thank you.

(bright music) >> It's important to tell a direct message, and that's why my work is called Metal Health Artwork.

So I've been suffering for years.

I didn't have an outlet, I didn't have a healthy way to deal with it, so I began to create this stuff, and that actually opened me up to conversations with the veteran community and the regular artist community at large.

(rock music) I joined the military as a young kid.

I graduated from high school about six months earlier than the rest of my class, and I had a teacher that took me under his wing and showed me a lot about welding.

So of course when I went down and took the test to join the Navy, they saw the aptitude I had for mechanical aptitude and welding, and when the orders came through, we got to pick our orders, the first three of us.

I just looked for shore duty and I found the Navy Seabees.

I had no idea that the Navy Seabee was actually C for construction and B for battalion.

So I wound up getting issued BDUs and learned how to shoot M16 and started working as a steel worker in the Seabees.

(rock music) Every seven months we would deploy to different part of the world, work at military bases, building infrastructure.

And during my first deployment went to Spain and came back to California.

Then we were on a plane getting ready to go to Guam in the Pacific and call came over.

The captain called us off of the plane, told us to go back to the base and we started getting prepared to mount out for Mogadishu, Somalia.

And that was a big surprise for all of us 'cause there was nothing going on there at the time.

We were actually the first unit there, so that was interesting to see how things had gone relatively smooth when we first got there.

And as more and more troops came from the UN, things kind of spiraled out, and I had a couple of different incidents that I was involved with that left a mark on me.

(somber music) As a young 19-year-old at the time, I didn't really realize that how important these things were to deal with 'em at the time, so I kind of compartmentalized it, put it away, finished my time in the military.

I got out in 1995 and came home and started my career as an iron worker.

(somber music) I had a really difficult time adjusting to my new life, my new job, and I heard these noises at night, and I couldn't sleep.

So I'd find myself patrolling the house thinking that somebody was coming in.

And there was one night back in 2015 where I was pacing back and forth, and I wound up finding an old typewriter that I bought in an estate sale.

Began dismantling it a couple nights later when I was woken up by nightmares again, started to take the pieces and bolt 'em together.

And I think that that's where the start was.

That kept me occupied until 5:00 AM when I can go to my regular job.

So it got to the point where I was looking to do that stuff.

Even though it was normally an activity I did at night when I couldn't sleep, it started to become something I wanted to do as soon as I got home from work, and that's when I knew I was on the right path.

(bright music) I think that when I first started out making animals, that was something that came easy to me.

And as I developed my skills and I start to get where I could actually make facial expression and implied movement in the pieces I think is as I develop as an artist, that's more and more prominent in my work, and I'm beginning to do things where they have some kinetic movement, things that are spring or they have hinged areas where they move.

One of the first thing was actually a hand that I made and rather than follow a sketch that I had, I actually used my hand, and I would study the anatomy, the length and everything, and I transferred that to the material I was making.

(bright music) I was looking for an opportunity to share work being a veteran artist.

And there's an organization here called Chicago Veterans that they were putting on a show at the time.

It was a one-day event showcasing, and I was terrified.

I thought people were gonna look at the stuff that I had created and say, "Hey, this is just junk.

You know, we're looking for art."

The truth is, when I got in the room that night and they put my stuff in a prominent place, it was the best feeling ever.

And yeah, the sense of acceptance and accomplishment that I felt was something that has driven me ever since.

And it's been a great thing to be part of the veteran artist community, and that led me to working with other groups.

Uniting Us was an organization that took me all the way to the Library of Congress, got to put my story in the Library of Congress, pictures of my artwork, and just share my story in a historic place like that really let me know I'm on the right path.

(bright music) A lot of the skills that I learned in the Seabees led me to be a welder, and the welding, of course, led to the creation of this Metal Health Artwork.

And I love that I'm able to give something back.

I love that I'm able to put content out and let other veterans see it.

And the best part of it is when someone contacts me and tells me how inspired they are, how much they decided to do something for themselves because they're inspired by me being honest and open about my story and my experiences.

(bright music) (rock music) >> For me, I grew up as a kid going to car shows with my dad, and, man, I just love seeing all these custom cars and the metal work that went into 'em.

And so I've been kind of doing that my whole life, and then I met her, and she was into it too, so we both kinda like combined stuff and just started working together, and it just kept growing and growing.

>> I grew up very mountain man, Native American (chuckling) kind of.

So I grew up doing leather work kind of just out of necessity, making things to use, and as I started to do more and more of it, it kind of became a business.

And then when we met, I was doing that and then I already did metal when I was in high school.

I really enjoyed it, so I kind of picked up more when I met him.

And then I started getting some leather jobs through the steel mill, and then got metal jobs through the steel mill, and then we got a bigger job working on some shipping containers, turning 'em into restaurants.

And then I said, "Okay, you can quit your job now."

(chuckling) So that's how we kinda started combining it together.

>> As a kid, I was more into like muscle car restoration type of stuff, which I still love that.

I love taking something that looks all old and beat up and making it look brand new again.

It's just, it's super rewarding, you know?

But after a while that stuff kind of gets boring because you already know what the car's gonna look like.

You know, if it's a stock car, you're putting it back to the way it was, and, you know, so it gets kind of dull, so and I wanted to do more, more custom stuff, where I'm making my own thing and doing what I want, you know?

And so it started with that with my dad and then I just started acquiring a little bit of tools here, a lot of, you know, reading books, looking at stuff on the internet, and it just kinda, you know, I keep trying to just push and push and, you know, push my skills to where I'm making something from completely just flash.

>> And his family, he leaves out, they're all machinists.

>> True, so we do that too.

>> So he grew up in a machine shop that was, you know, so he had access to larger tools and things that normal people and kids didn't.

And so, and his dad was into drag racing and things like that, so he kind of tagged along.

So it was kind of he...

I think it's when it comes natural to you, you know, you're like, you forget how you got into it, but, yeah, he is.

>> My dad was a tool and die maker his whole life, so it's just like it's instilled in me, you know?

>> So he measures everything to like the millionth.

Takes forever to build that thing.

>> I can't help it.

It just, that's the way it is, you know.

(rock music) ♪ Ah ♪ I mean, the first step it's gotta get down, taking down the bare metal and see what you have to work with because to go over something that's already there, it's not the right way to do it, first of all, and it's gonna come back to bite you.

And you know, it's our reputation, so we want to do things the right way.

So strip it, fix whatever needs to be fixed, or if we're doing custom stuff, you know, we'll get a rendering made or, you know, sit down with the client, see what he wants and kinda sketch something out.

>> But we also say what we want to.

>> True.

(Aubrey chuckles) We've learned that whatever we put on the street, we wanna be proud of, and sometimes people may not have the same idea of what's cool as we do, and so we've definitely learned that we would rather say no to somebody who may not have the same style guide as us, and so we would rather if people come to us because they appreciate our style.

>> We kinda steer 'em.

>> So we learn when to say... Yeah, we try to steer them, you know, so we learn when to say no and when to like, you know, when the customer is right, so.

>> Brian: And then it works its way up from there, you know?

Then we move on to the body shop, paint work, assembly, all the normal stuff to get to something like that.

A lot of hours.

>> Aubrey: I mean, expression is like unlimited.

Really, you can do whatever you want to a car.

I think that's why customizing a car is the coolest form of expression.

You can go as modest or as crazy as you want.

And so I think, you know, we're really into like the art deco eras and stuff, and so that's something that we like to express a lot, and I think that's something that we carry through in a lot of our design and- >> Yeah, for sure.

>> Build.

>> And especially this car 'cause this one's ours, so we're poured into this as much as you can be, so.

(rock music) (rock music) (sparks crackling) >> Aubrey: Well, you think that people, that they're secrets, and I think that's kind of our initial idea of the car scene, was that, you know, "Oh, how do they build that?"

or, "How do they do this?"

or "How do they do that?"

But honestly, the deeper we've gotten into it as a business, we've been so welcomed, and there's so many bigger builders out there that have really helped us, whether it's how to machine something or paint something or their techniques, how they got something another way or how they run their business.

It's been very like welcoming, which we didn't expect at first.

>> No, it's super surprising.

>> We thought it was gonna be super... 'Cause there are some people that are competitive and not as welcoming, but you quickly find your people.

It's just a blessing, you know, to have somebody come to you to do something that we get to build from nothing, pretty much, with our hands and produce something, and we're getting paid to do it.

You know, to me that's why it's live free, because we're living free from, you know, we're making our own rules, and we get to do what we wanna do and make a living off of it, which is awesome.

>> I mean, there's nothing better than that.

And it makes all the hard work and all the late nights and the being upset that something's not working out the way you wanted it, but in the end, when you have that car done and the client loves it, and other people are just like, "Oh, my God," there's nothing better.

(rock music) (metal clanging) >> I'd been watching blacksmithing videos, and I found this piece of rail track.

I'd known that people would use these things for anvils.

I'm like, "That's it.

That's my first piece."

I carried that thing around in the backpack, like as I walked around, to actually remind me to continue to pursue this thing.

So yeah, I did that for like a year.

(light percussive music) I actually ended up building my first forge out of an eight-inch frying pan.

So I got some plumbing parts, put it together in a fan from a bathroom and made my first forge.

I would go out to the tracks on the East Side of Chicago, where they barge in coal, but there would always be spillovers of coal, so I'd go out there and collect buckets of coal.

(rock music) I went for about a year learning how to start a fire and run a fire 'cause you just have to know it.

(chuckling) And you start realizing how to make mistakes with fire.

(rock music) I enjoy having the capabilities of not so much doing things, but knowing how to figure out how to do things.

That's the real draw.

As a blacksmith, everything is shared.

It's always seems like an equitable arrangement between you and the people that do this.

>> It's off a little bit.

(metal clinking) Everybody wants you to know you're capable, and if you're not capable right now, lemme show you how to be capable.

(rock music) There's a saying that there's honesty and accuracy.

(chuckling) There's a lot of truth in knowing that you're in a craft, that you have a bucket of screwups.

You know, and every single one of us have it, you know?

So, I dunno.

It's nice.

It's humbling.

(car humming) (heartfelt music) 20 years ago, my dad built a house right across the street and I used to work with my dad, and, you know, I heard bang, bang, bang one night and like, "What is that?"

And I drive by and I drive by and I drive by, and I'd hear.

Finally I pulled in here, and I'd met Roger 20 years ago.

I joined the IVBA, and I got a newsletter in the mail, this was almost seven years ago, with this guy's address in it, Roger Carlson, who was my mentor.

Came by the next day, got to talking with him.

He says, "Well, yeah.

I could use a little help around here."

We hit it off, and it was just one of those things where everything fell right in the place for me to be here at Ephraim Forge.

(metal clanking) He can't get rid of me (laughing).

Oddly enough, his wife was my teacher my freshman year in high school, but me and Roger kind of attached at the hip.

(thud resonating) We're probably more family now than anything.

It was a fast track.

It really was fast track.

I walked into this.

I'm the luckiest boy in the world, and I really truly am.

I feel like a brat a lot of times 'cause when I get down, I talk to people.

I'm like, "Oh, in my shop we would do it this way."

I'm like, "Well, not everybody's as fortunate as you are."

So, you know, I had to realize better shut up and listen to these guys 'cause they got more information than I do.

Truly.

I have more tools.

They have way more information.

Roger, you know, he's my mentor.

The guy's been doing this for 40 years.

And his work is just as sounding.

(gentle music) A lot of guys that I know exist with that anvil, that hammer, that coal forge.

Some of them are lucky enough to have a propane forge.

Nothing is inexpensive.

(gentle music) The saying goes, "By hammer and hand, all crafts do stand."

So there was a point in time where the tailor needed a pair of scissors or a needle, they had to go to the blacksmith.

Farmer needs a scythe sharpened, blacksmith.

Everything was centralized around that smithy.

(metal clinking) (forge hissing) That smithy didn't want to do all those things, so he started doing, "Oh, I'm gonna mechanize this," "I'm gonna make a tool for this."

(metal clanking) Bend it, cut it, you weld it, it's a limited amount of things you can do with this material, but the things that you see that have been done with that material from the discovery of it and the discovery of the manipulation of it, we have the Industrial Revolution to everything that we do to this day.

You know, we're in... Aerospace technology uses forging.

It's as rudimentary as it gets.

It's just a hammer.

It's an air hammer, but it's just a hammer.

(rock music) (metal clinking) Now some of the things that we make are heirloom quality.

We made a table here one time.

I wanna say that thing was nearly nine feet long.

Two benches that went with it.

That to me says there's gonna be a large family sitting around it.

That's cool.

You know, I really like that.

I'm like, "Man, this is gonna have good times, you know, around it for its existence."

And when those people, you know, pass on or decide to downsize, somebody's gonna want that 'cause they're gonna see the same thing that I saw when I made it.

They're gonna see long tables are good times.

The wine cellar gate that we made for the guy, it's an award-winning piece.

A great sense of, "Good on you, man."

Everybody's capable of doing what it is they did.

I started this thing off when I was walking around.

(chuckling) I had an idea.

I just held onto the idea, you know?

(rock music) (industrial rock music) >> The way it all started is I'm a son of a sculptor, fifth-generation artist.

Apparently my pyrotechnic fascinations came out at an early age.

When I was about four or five years old, my father came into the basement, off the garage, and saw a flickering in the furnace room.

And he comes in and finds this little kid, you know, sticking the broom handle into the oil furnace and sitting, just watching it burn.

And so he started taking me to studio shortly after that.

And so I was always around in that environment.

He's a ceramic artist and sculptor.

It gave me that impetus of like, "Yes, I could play with fire, but let's be creative about it."

(rock music) So it certainly started off in ceramics, I've dabbled in glass, but really my fascination is working with metal, this balance between fabrication, welding, grinding, cutting, with generating patterns and casting, transforming those objects into cast forms.

Predominantly bronze, but some aluminum and cast iron as well.

(rock music) My brain works spatially.

There are times where I'll draw and try to, you know, sketch things out a little bit, but it's all trying to, you know, deal with illusion and kind of faking things to make it look like it's three dimensional.

I'll start off working in clay as my way to sketch and/or a combination with doing VR sculpting, and then it's basically the idea of working in maquette and scale.

One of the great things that's, you know, come about in the last few years is working in VR.

And so now I can actually draw something, and I can pick it up and then move it around.

Or my VR space is big enough that I can set up a piece, blow it up to life size, and I can physically walk around it.

Now I'm in that three-dimensional space and I can rely on the the body mechanics, the muscle memory that I've spent 30 years developing down here in the shop, translates directly into the computer space now.

The reality is, especially when you start going large, is that you're dealing with physics, chemistry, engineering, you know, structural aspects, you know, so things aren't falling over and killing someone.

You really kind of have to have a grasp on every aspect.

(reflective music) I love working big, but at the same time, trying to launch into something that's gonna take several months and tens of thousands of dollars to do, I wanna work out some of those problems working small, and then that actually allows me to present that to a jury situation (metal clanging) or the funders.

(tense music) Different designers, stuff like that, will design something, but then they take their design to a fabricator, and then, you know, that fabricator is gonna give them exactly what they want.

I can certainly work as a fabricator, but by being the designer and the fabricator, there are a lot of really cool creative decision making that I can do during the process that allows my pieces to evolve from the beginning point to the ending point.

And that's a lot of what keeps it exciting, to keep your attention and focus through the entire process.

(reflective music) The large stuff, that's all fabricated out of plate, and so I'll work in cardboard, draw out, you know, different designs, lay 'em out onto the sheets of typically stainless steel, and then I'll use a plasma cutter, slice those out, clean 'em up, shape 'em, and then weld those into the existing sculpture.

(uplifting music) The bulk of my work is fixated on the body and ultimately the idea of body language.

And so between that and a combination of the fact that I'm basically a child of sci-fi, and so I've always been really interested in technology and how do we perceive ourselves through that technology.

And so I do work with models and different dancers, rock climbers, circus performers, contortionists, and ultimately I'm interested in people that are, you know, speaking with their bodies but also taking their bodies out of context.

Those are the ideas that are generating my forms.

And whether they're hanging off the wall, coming off the ceiling, or in a balanced pose, out on a pedestal, as I'm watching the viewers come up and react to it, it's my way of kind of my social experiment of seeing how people deal with that communication, that body language.

(uplifting music) The sculptures in a lot of ways aren't really complete until they find their way out.

And whether it's in a gallery space or on the street corner, I'm trying to make the objects in such a way that they garner a response.

And, you know, whether that, you know, that forces you to hate 'em or love 'em, I don't care, you know, but I want you to think about it.

And you know, the thing that's most frustrating is when you see someone walk by one of your sculptures and they don't even look at it, you know?

Then it's like going, "Oh, I failed."

You know, it's like going, "I didn't do something that at least made them take a second look."

I just want to change people's perception of their space or their surroundings.

I was never comfortable talking in front of groups, and so it was always easier for me to retreat to the backyard or the garage, or ultimately my dad's studio, and speak through my materials.

So when it came to expressing ideas or more specifically really processing my life experiences, it was always easier to do that through generation of objects.

(uplifting music) >> Dale: Doing as much as you can as quickly as you can is important to me.

(uplifting music) Life is short, and the earlier we get started helping our community, the better off our community will be.

>> Announcer: Family, home, work, self, of all the things you take care of, make sure you are near the top of the list.

North Shore Health Centers offers many services to keep you balanced and healthy.

So take a moment, self-assess, and put yourself first.

From medical to dental, vision, chiropractic, and mental health, North Shore will help get you centered.

You help keep your world running, so make sure to take care of yourself.

North Shore Health Centers, building a healthy community, one patient at a time.

(bright music) >> Announcer: "Eye on the Arts" is made possible in part by South Shore Arts, the John W. Anderson Foundation, and the Indiana Arts Commission, making the arts happen.

Additional support for Lakeshore Public Media and local programming is made possible by viewers like you.

Thank you.

(bright music) (uplifting music) >> You really have to think about, how do you support a child through all the developmental aspects of life?

(uplifting music) >> When we have those positive relational experiences, and we learn that we're worthy and it's a safe place to be and that there's hope in the world, but we take that with us.

(uplifting music) >> It is really a learning process between two people, and that's what building a relationship is all about.

That's such a satisfying and bonding thing for you and your child.

You feel it, and your child feels it too.

And if a child receives comfort, support, nurturance and protections, then they learn safety, security, trust, and hope, and think about what a world we would live in.

(uplifting music) >> Announcer: A $100,000 matching grant, generously provided by the Legacy Foundation, will double your contribution today.

Building Blocks, a community investment with everlasting returns.

(inquisitive music) (bright tones resonating)