- I'm here in Mill River, Massachusetts to get a look at the industrial quilts of artist Robin Tost.

Now, forget your traditional fabric quilts.

These are made out of metal and wire, and you're gonna wanna check 'em out, follow me.

(lively orchestral music) - Thank you.

(lively orchestral music) Metal quilting, I don't know of too many other people that do it, which is smart of them, because it's a truly ludicrous medium.

It takes forever.

It is dangerous, particularly 'cause I work in scrap metals.

I told you there will be blood.

(lively orchestral music) Why do I do this?

It first started in about 2010.

I had gone on a bike trip with a pal through Vermont and New Hampshire, and we kept going, riding through small towns where the factories were all closed down.

And in many yards, there were handmade signs that said quilts for sale, and I was thinking about the fact that the women were having to make up for the loss of the income that the guys had lost in these foundries and factories.

And then I thought, well, what if it's not the women who are making them?

Women are doing, you know, all the other stuff as well, and I said, "What if it's the men that are making them?

And if I were a machinist who had lost my job, what kind of quilt would I make?"

(lively orchestral music) So that led to the first quilt, which had many, many layers of rusted metals, but also gadgety stuff that belong on machines.

I cut each piece by hand, then I lay it out, and I mark with a pen where the holes will be, and I punch the holes with a drill press, clamp them together with just clips, generally, and sew it with quilting stitches.

(lively orchestral music) I stitch with wires, and they have to be flexible enough to push them through and crimp them and then push them back.

I mean, unlike sewing with a thread, you can't do this, because the metal doesn't allow that, so you have to push through, and then be get to the other side and push it back.

(lively piano music) I like the patterns, and I also like the geometric part of it.

I like that they're mathematical as well as decorative.

(lively piano music) My metals come from a bunch of places, predominantly the local transfer station.

Also, there are a couple of automotive junkyards that I go to.

They're usually kind of dirty and kind of corroded, which is part of the things that appeals to me about that stuff.

I love what age and use does to metal.

I put lemon juice and salt to try to change the patina, and I also peed on it.

(all laughing) I started out making just flat quilts that were shown on the wall, and using traditional quilting patterns and quilting stitches, and then several years ago, somebody said to me, "Have you ever thought about working three dimensionally?"

And I said, "No," and then of course, started thinking about it.

I started making birds and animals with the scrap metal quilted as a skin on a steel frame.

It's hard to pick favorites, but I would say that the spirit bear is dear to my heart.

I think she's got personality, and also with the sea serpent, Cecilia developed a real personality, and I'm sure that sounds very booga booga, but I do kind of feel that they are, you know, they're their own thing.

The transportation on the great big things had become very, very difficult, and involved many people and lots of money, and so I just said, "Okay, I'm gonna go back and make something I can fit in the car again, the way I used to do things."

So the turtle fits to the quarter inch in the back of the Subaru.

I think of the turtle as being a martial sort of character, and the decoration that are on the different plates of the shell, I consider, you know, to be like military awards of some kind or another.

During COVID, I was here by myself.

My kids wouldn't come near me for fear of killing me, and it was a truly, truly lonely time.

And I think if I hadn't had the serpent to work on, I don't know what I would've done.

I mean, I can't imagine waking up and not having something to do, because you can only read so much, and I was just boring myself into a coma, and so I was so happy to be able to come out here to the studio and have something to work on.