Terry Jones of Jewitt says it was boredom that drove him to the craft of metal arts. You can take one look at his work and know that he is not bored anymore.
A giant spider with gas pumps for legs and a horse head made from confiscated weapons from the Leon County Sheriff’s Department are just two of the unique sculptures Jones has created.
Jones is one of more than 30 artists who will be showcasing their talents at Texas Metal Arts – A Festival in Gruene in its sixth year, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily Sept. 12-13.
“Last year, we cancelled the festival because of Hurricane Ike. It was the hardest thing we’ve ever done,” says Zeke Zewick, of Edom, one of the festival’s founders. “But we didn’t want to be at risk, and we didn’t want to put our customers at risk.”
Zewick and his wife, Marty, decided to organize the festival mainly because of its uniqueness. Visitors to the free event should expect the unexpected.
“We just like the idea of concentrating on metal,” Zewick says, who has operated his jewelry studio in Edom with his wife since 1976.
Some of the Zewicks’ pieces, which can be viewed online at: www.zekeandmarty.com, include oxidized washers and precious gems, cone shells with coral, toasted polished bone, mah-jong tiles and deer cranium with silver and blue topaz. His fellow artists share his zest for creativity.
“There is a great variety of yard art, jewelry and sculptures at this festival,” Zewick says.
The following artists are among those featured in the event:
Terry Jones, Jewitt
www.tmjcreativesculptures.com
Jones’ creativity was sparked by watching the metal items in his antique shop grow even older and dustier for lack of a quick sell.
“After the metal stuff quit selling, I started making stuff out of the metal,” he says.
He started making yard birds about five or six years ago. Then, he started making other sculptures out of other finds – such as 100-year-old handcuffs. From there, the sculptures naturally progressed until he soon found himself working with the Leon County Sheriff’s Department and the League City Police Department forming unique animal heads out of confiscated weapons.
“I take something that was once used for violence and turn it into art,” he says.
He is particularly proud of a life-sized bull’s head made from 40 guns, as well as silver dollars and other coins. The piece is now on display at the Butler Longhorn Museum in League City.
Ashley Akers, Ft. Worth
www.ashleyakersjewelry.com
Ashley Akers of Fort Worth first became interested in making jewelry in high school by learning how to solder from her father.
“I worked with beads and did a bit of wire wrapping,” she says.
When she began attending classes at the University of North Texas, she signed up for a beginning jewelry class during her sophomore year and never looked back.
“I studied under world-renowned enamellist and current president of the Society of North American Goldsmiths Harlan Butt,” she says.
She graduated from the university with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts in metalsmithing in 1999. After moving to Fort Worth and finding a job in a garden shop, she found the inspiration for her Pebble jewelry line. “I really enjoy the contrast that I get by mixing the unpolished found pebbles with colorful, shiny gemstones,” she says.
Akers’ unique creations also pair gemstones with other combinations such as polymer clay and river rocks.
Jeanette “Nettie” Ormond, New Braunfels
Nettie’s Crafts
231 FM 306
(830) 625-7668
Jeanette “Nettie” Ormond of New Braunfels has been a quilter all her life. She also helped her husband in his welding shop on Farm-to-Market 306. Then, one day it occurred to her.
“I thought, ‘What I do with fabric, I can do with metal,’” she says.
That was 18 years ago. Since then, Ormond has been crafting bowls, ornaments, wind chimes, yard signs, candleholders, fire rings, sconces and chandeliers out of recycled metal. Much of her metal comes from Freon tanks, old steel doors and 55-gallon drums.
“Mine is 98-percent recycled metal art,” she says. “People just drop off stuff at my door here. That is like Christmas to me.”
Her items are shipped all over Texas and all across the United States. While many of her empty Freon tanks arrive at her door in the traditional green color, she gets especially excited about other colors. A bright red 55-gallon drum was cut up and fashioned into candy cane ornaments in preparation for shipment to a store at Canyon Lake. They will in turn be shipped to other stores and markets around the area. A deep wine Freon tank was fashioned into a bowl with intricate grapevine cutouts.
Orange tanks are fashioned into Jack-O-Lantern bowls and blue ones are cut into nativity scenes.
“The nativity scenes get shipped to Galveston at a big store there. They have a whole room just for nativity scenes,” Ormond says.
Ormond says she tries to make enough items to appeal to everyone, because everyone has different tastes and different collections.
She made a rattlesnake out of a farrier’s old file. She also has on hand plenty of frogs, roosters, scorpions, jackrabbits, armadillos and horned toads. She made a round plaque of star cutouts from a satellite dish. She creates lamps, with fish cutouts, out of minnow buckets. She also creates school logo items, name signs and yard art such as the large cactus she just created for a client’s front porch.
She says sometimes customers will bring her a piece of metal that belonged to their grandmother or grandfather that they want to have repurposed in some form or fashion. Ormond enjoys being able to bring new life to the special mementos.
“This porcelain tub was this lady’s baby bathtub when she was little,” Ormond says. “So I will be doing something with it, creating cutouts, and then she will be getting her own piece back.”
Festival events
The Texas Metal Arts Festival will include demonstrations as well as live entertainment by the E-Flat Porch Band, featuring Rudy Littrell and Duane Brown.
“The demonstrations are important,” Zewick says. “I think we provide an education to the customers. It helps them see the difficulties we face and also see why the price tag might be the way it is – why it takes a certain amount of time to make something and what goes into making something.”
Just some of the demonstrations include direct metal sculpture: patina, cutting metal, creating plants and animals from copper and brass, and stamping technique for jewelry design.
Even when it comes to the challenges of working with metal, the artists themselves know to expect the unexpected.
“I did a life-size replica of a customer’s dog once, but I will probably never do that again,” Jones says. “It took four different visits just to measure the dog – the ears, the tail, the head – because he kept trying to snap at me. The top was difficult to create. I kept tearing it back down and rebuilding it. It was difficult to find parts, the different pieces of scrap metal to make the top.”
For information about the festival, call 1-903-852-3311 or visit www.texasmetalarts.com.
