Taking strides
By Johna Strickland - Argus Observer
Tuesday, June 12, 2007 10:48 AM PDT
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| Metal artist Garrett George, 14, with his horse Joey, coaxes flowers, horses and Phoenixes to rise from rusty sheets of metal and become art. |
New Plymouth - Garrett George works in rust, steel and flames to generate the art that leaves him feeling “accomplished.”
“I feel like I created what I wanted to create,” George said.
George, 14, started his journey to be a metal artist last year when he met Pattie Young, owner of Rustic Raven Designs in New Plymouth.
Young showed George her craft and introduced him to Boise-area artshows, he said.
From scrap metal, George structured his first piece — a metal flower with “five petals going up and six drooping,” he said.
“It was pretty interesting ‘cause the first show I went to I go $250,” George said. “It kinda flew outta my pocket.”
Now George reinvests the money by helping Young with the cost of purchasing their “blank canvases” — metal.
One place they frequent is that scrap metal pile at Pacific Steel in Nampa.
“If we see something there that we can see it being something else we grab it,” George said.
Using soapstone chalk and vinyl markers, George traces the pieces of his design onto blank sheet metal. Sometimes he transfers the tracings from paper if the work isn’t “in my head,” George said. George and Young then guide the sheet through a plasma cutter.
“It’s like on Star Wars if you were to take a laser and burn a hole in a ship,” George said. “A plasma cutter, it cuts with a laser type thing and at the same time it blows some stuff to help it cut.”
George puts the cutouts together with a wire-fed MiG welder before adding the finishing colors to the surface. Depending on the piece and how he feels about it, George may rust the metal, dab on spray paint with a towel or heat treat the metal by running a torch over the desired area. His Phoenix — currently displayed at the Four Rivers Cultural Center — attests to the beauty of heat treating. As the metal warms, it changes colors.
“The hottest grade you could get metal is a white,” George said. “And gold is usually the first color that pops up.”
A sophomore at New Plymouth High School in the fall, George said he made a metal dream catcher with a bird in flight for his art teacher this year.
“She thought it was going to be a heat treated steel hammered out ashtray. Little did she know,” George said. “Little did I know. She’s Native American and I made her a Native American themed piece.”
This summer George — who also works in oils, pencil and the occasional clay when required at school — will continue working with Young and likely apprentice himself to Bernie Jestrabek-Hart, a barbed wire artist in Sand Hollow, which may be a frustrating, yet educational experience, George said.
“I’ll probably help her with her work,” George said. “You’re hammering and you’re like this could be mine.”
In the future, George hopes to attend the University of Idaho and be a professional metal artist.
“My mom and dad thought I’d be a lawyer or doctor, I guess I showed them,” George said.
For now, George lives in the rolling hills outside New Plymouth with a Border Collie named Cowboy Dave, his horse Joey and a pair of blue parakeets that have marital problems.
“They yell at each other at like five in the morning,” George said.
