William Brock, metal artist

Born and raised in Sequatchie County TN, the son of a coal mining Pentecostal preacher, metal artist William Brock was based in Altanta for over twenty years of his working life and supervised highrise and other commercial construction all over the Southeast-taking structure, aesthetics, and movement into consideration. In the late 90s he decided he'd had enough of Atlanta traffic and crushing schedules and moved back to Tennessee, where he eventually settled into his own version of semi-retirement: finishing drywall and spending as much time as he could on the back of a horse.

"There's so much beauty and grace in nature, and we keep covering it up with concrete. I've certainly done my share of it," says Brock.

"As a kid, I tagged along with my grandmother, who was Muskogee. She used the natural world as her medicine cabinet and she taught me a lot about plants and animals. And I hunted with my daddy and uncles. I practically lived in the woods as a kid. As a grown man and a sportsman, I hunted and fished some of the most beautiful habitat in the South. Since I no longer hunt, I spend as much time as I can riding my horse on old logging roads and deer trails and studying animals, birds in particular. Their connection to the prehistoric world fascinates me."

In 2004, Brock's wife, poet and novelist Darnell Arnoult, gave him a Mig welder as a thank you gift for being so supportive of her writing. In return, she asked Brock to make a few pieces of yard art out of parts from old farm equipment and cast off appliances hidden in ditches on their ten-acre farm in Smith County, an hour east of Nashville. Brock obliged: a sundial from a Model-A rear end housing, a corn planter wheel, and a plow point stands among Cannas near his studio and a face made from an old round table fan, a plow disk, and various tractor parts peeks out from a patch of Primrose. But Brock quickly became bored with those projects.

"I'm going to make a bird," Brock told Arnoult one morning shortly after getting the welder. A few days later Brock had made a life-size flamingo from old roofing tin and rebar he found in his barn; the eyes were screws and pieces of plastic cut from old five-gallon buckets. Each bird he made looked more lifelike than the one before. One of his most recent birds is a Heron landing on a rock with its spread wings spanning 80 inches.

"The engineer in me focused on learning how to make the bird look accurate in size and proportion," says Brock. "When I managed that, I got more into showing movement and the grace inherent in a bird's motion, particularly larger water fowl. That's where I am now. I give myself different challenges to convey the spirit and physics as well as the form of a particular bird, give it some sense of animation, while maintaining the structural integrity. I always learn something from the bird I'm making. And each bird takes on its own personality. "

Brock is a self-taught artist and the calluses on his hands are a testament to each individually hand-cut feather. The principle materials used for his birds are old roofing tin, used five-gallon plastic buckets, rebar, old copper flashing, and wire. Birds can be made from new tin or copper and clear-coated, if the buyer prefers that. Brock considers the gradual rusting and patina of the birds to be part of the piece of art's maturation. Most birds come with either a stone or cedar base. Birds can be easily removed and placed in the ground as well. Some of Brock's creations have found a home outdoors on ponds or in gardens, and some roost inside, nestled among plants near a large window or on a shelf or mantel piece. If kept outside, any exposed, unrusted metal will eventually take on a beautiful rusted finish, or in the case of the copper birds, a beautiful blue-green patina. Each bird is banded with a copper ring bearing William Brock's signature.

"One morning I had several metal herons and cranes sitting in the grass outside my studio," says Brock. "I was across the yard in a shed when I saw a Blue Heron land in front of my birds and spend a couple of minutes checking them out. When I stepped into the yard, he flew away. I don't know if he was looking for a fight or for love, but he let me know I'm doing something right."

Brock's birds can be found in private collections from Tennessee to Florida and from Washington DC to Washington state. His sculptures are for sale at Cedar Creek Gallery in Creedmoor, NC, The Sculpture Garden at The Roost in Fearrington Village, south of Chapel Hill, NC, and the Appalachian Center for Craft, a part of Tennessee Tech, located in Smithville, TN. You may also purchase birds directly from Rusted Bird Studio.