Art Weeast

Sculpture

Art Weeast has always enjoyed making things by hand since his early childhood. It started in his father's workshop as a young boy.

When he retired from the corporate world in 2018, he started looking for a winter hobby, preferably one he could do by hand. He stumbled upon a couple of artists in England making different hand-twisted wire tree sculptures. One of these artists, Clive Madison, inspired him to create a tree sculpture of his own. Without any formal training, the learning and experimentation process was fascinating for him. The hobby has since turned into an artistic obsession with over 200 trees created.

He is one of about seven artists in the US who make hand-twisted wire tree sculptures, each different in their style and technique.

His works consist of hand-twisting copper or aluminum wire into tree sculptures of varying shapes and sizes. He mounts the trees on beautiful fossilized or mineral rock bases that are just as interesting as the sculpture. The copper wire used has an enameled coating that allows for many different colors and prevents the wire from changing color over time. Each design uses between 140 – 200 individual wires cut to approximately 30" long that are hand twisted to form the roots, trunk, and branches. The remaining 18" of wire is hand-twisted into loops to simulate the leaves (except for willow and windswept trees). Each tree will have between 2,800 to 4,500 loops.

Website: twistedartsculptures.com

Email: [email protected]