Lewis Metal Critters Gallery

“A sculpture is just a painting cut out and stood up somewhere.”
Frank Stella

Owls Greeting Visitors at Driveway Entrance

These are two of my husband’s and my first metal sculptures. They’re about 2 feet tall and weigh a LOT. We mounted them on top of poles at the entrance to our driveway. The eyes are made from automobile reflectors, so they light up when car lights shine on them. :0)

Owls at the bottom of the driveway

We’re ‘retired’ now, though I work a zillion hours a day on my website, Creative Artworks,  and neither of us can figure out how we ever found time to work full time. We’re busier than we’ve ever been and the days whiz past our heads, making our hair blow.

We had a shop built, and then last year doubled its size to accommodate all the ‘stuff’ we love to do.

This is our “Guard Dog,” or “Gun Dog.” Since this picture was taken, we hung a “Beware of the Dog” Sign on him. He stands to the side of the driveway, toward the top, attached to a huge boulder.

“Sun Face” at top of Driveway

If we ever made another one of these, we would make it MUCH lighter. We almost couldn’t lift it up high enough to be mounted on the tree.

“Emu” Planters

These were SO much fun to make! We have two on the right of the driveway, usually with periwinkles spilling out over the sides of the planters. We have two more living on our deck. The final two we made are being held for a ‘thank you’ to our family doctor, whose wife fell in love with them. They’ll live beside a new pool! They’re about 4 feet tall, and the pots are 14″ in diameter. The necks detach, or can be moved around to change the attitude of the head. The head can then be turned in any direction.

Dragonfly

This was a fun project. The body is made of scrap metal welded together and then powder coated. The wings are iridescent stained glass with metal rod surrounding them. The eyes are a rubber “dog toy ball” cut in half and then painted.

“Butterfly”

This is my husband’s metal butterfly. It’s made of scrap metal, including a satellite dish antenna. :0) It’s HUGE and weighs a LOT.

“Menagerie”

This is one side of our house, on one side of our garage door. We have a frog, ladybug, gecko, and two dragonflies.

3 D Metal Painting

This is a metal painting built into a metal frame that forms the background “water.” The angelfish are cut out separately and mounted onto the background on metal rods, so they stick out forward from the background.

“Fraidy Cat”

We’re having great fun with these! Each cat is a little bit different, either in attitude, color, eyes, etc. This one was adopted by a lady who wanted to give him to her sister for Christmas this year. We have another one in blue, and a third one in green. The next one planned will be a “Siamese.”

“Box” Turtle

Made from scrap metal, this guy sits at one end of the house.

“Peacock”

The peacock keeps the Box Turtle company.

Dog With Bone

When our pit bull, Bambi, first saw this metal sculpture, he barked at it. Then, he raced across the yard, sniffed at him from one end to the other, and finally peed on him. Keeps you humble! :0)

We hope you enjoyed seeing our gallery of metal critters.

“Painting and sculpture are very archaic forms. It’s the only thing left in our industrial society where an individual alone can make something with not just his own hands, but brains, imagination, heart maybe.” Philip Guston

We just got a present of some scrap metal from a friend. This is HUGE, because, due to insurance liability, junk yards and scrap metal places cannot allow regular folks to putter around, buying wonderful critter parts anymore. I can’t wait to see what wonderful ‘critters-that-never-were” we can put together from the wonderful scraps!

“Sculpture is the stuff you trip over when you are backing up trying to look at a painting.” Jules Olitski