Recycling Scrap Metal

My exploration began with scavenged scrap metal—steel, copper, aluminum, brass, even wire hangers—guided by a fascination with overlooked beauty and the wabi-sabi philosophy of finding elegance in imperfection. As I bent and twisted these fragments into delicate display models for hoops and chains, I began to see echoes of the jewelry I collect: ornamental objects that pierce, hang, and clasp with both fragility and strength. These studies grew in scale and ambition, culminating in a 2.5-foot suspended ear sculpture pierced like jewelry and, eventually, the Pierced Mass—a hanging tower of welded steel waste pierced by cable. At once ornamental and precarious, it spins in the air like an architectural earring: sharp, heavy, and risky. This process marked my entry into metalwork, where sawing, welding, and drilling steel revealed not only the physicality of craft but also the latent potential of discarded material to become both structure and ornament.