Every great piece of art work needs to start with an idea that someone passes by me, or I see some piece of metal about and then I build it. In this case, this sculpture started out with both an idea I had at mind and a thought posed by a new friend.
I had two manhole covers that I picked up in a scrap yard to make into bases for a sculpture although I didn't have any idea what the sculpture would be. There they sat at my shop for six months when Therese asked about making a seven foot tall fish sculpture. Now here was an idea and a perfect base. The manhole cover is approximately two feet in diameter and weighs about 60-70 pounds. Perfect for the base of this sculpture.
I decided to use varying sizes of fence finials as a base for each fish. They have a great round shape and will create some interesting fish. I like these balls because they are hollow and move nicely when welded to the top of steel rod.
I welded one twisted piece of two inch flat bar to the manhole cover first. This gave me a height that I wanted to work around. A guide if you will. Here I am twisting on the steel. Yeah. My back is still hurting after twisting on all that steel. It's a real manual brute force process.
I'm still working on this piece buy you can see where I'm going with it. Mackie is creating glass eyes for each fish and I need to spray several coats of clear sealer to finish this piece off.
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