I began creating these pieces in 2008 after being laid off from my job in the construction industry. I had been in the construction field for 23 years, the last 15 of those in different management positions. The layoff gave me more free time then I knew what to do with. I began practicing my welding skills and soon became bored just attaching pieces together and tried to make something out of my practicing.

I was surprised to find out that my friends and family thought the work was good. I was cajoled into doing a local art show to show my wares, but was so frightened that it would be deemed horrible by those that weren’t close to me. The reaction was so positive that it inspired me to go on. It took another year and a dozen more shows for me to finally be able to say,  “I am an artist”.  I have no formal art training and my only recollection of any art class from school was learning something about perspective.

I am asked all the time where I get my ideas. Most just seem to come to me, usually about things I care for or have an interest in. I seem to have an innate ability to see most of my work completed in my head and then it just flows out of my hands into the piece. Both of which I believe are a gift from a power greater than me.

In retrospect, I have been creating all my life and never realized it or was encouraged to pursue that path.  As a kid I would rework my plastic models, never wanting them to be the same as the one on the box. I constantly tinkered with my bicycles, trying to customize them, to be different from my friends. I became a classically trained chef in my twenties, another outlet for my underlying need for expression, but became bored and disenchanted with the daily grind, of basically turning out the same dishes every day. I then became a carpenter and again became disenchanted and decided that I would be better suited to management, than labor in construction. I have owned quite a few motorcycles and have tinkered and customized them all, now I realize that it was again my need to be creative.

At least once at every show, I have a young child that will enter my booth (usually boys) and just become engrossed with my work. The parents always say the same thing about them, they are always building things and taking things apart and tinkering. I tell the kids that it is gift and that they should try to enjoy it and develop it. We can easily push an athletic child into sports, but a creative one, into the arts, not something the average parent would think of. I remember once talking to a friend of the family when I was about sixteen and he said to me, “I hear you are good with your hands; why not think about dental school?” Sage advice I suppose, but without any understanding of me.

Passion is what keeps me going, as financial rewards as of this time have been rather meager. I also have this feeling of regret that I should have begun this career earlier, but it takes what it takes, to get to the places in your life. I need to remember that my work is a compilation of the experiences throughout my life and Whistler did not do his first painting until age 65. I also need to remember that this is the happiest I have ever been in my life and I believe I have been given this gift for a reason. I refuse to squander it or give up, just because things appear to be tough.

Your humble and starving artist,

Jeff Zuck