Today we’d like to introduce you to Leah Jeffery.
Hi Leah, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
My junior year of high school, I decided I wanted to do a trade. I am very dyslexic, so school was a struggle, and I knew I did not want to go to college for four years to get a desk job, and I have always loved building things. I decided to do welding and signed up to dual enroll for my senior year of high school. I instantly loved welding. During my second year of welding school, I had a little extra time in class. So, inspired by some posts on social media, I got into scrap metal art, I really liked it. I made several sculptures throughout the school year. I sold a couple of them and with that money, I bought a welding machine.
From there, I continued to make sculptures and eventually got a workspace in a real shop. And have continued to create and learn how to use scrap metal in different ways to try to best capture the animal’s likeness and life.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I’d say the biggest struggle was learning the material (which is still an ongoing process). Working with dissimilar metals can get tricky with how they weld to gather and how to shape and bend them. For example, figuring out ways to connect certain scraps of metal that can’t be welded, to ones that can, like using a piece of copper in between so that it can be soldered to one piece and welded to the other, but the welding has to be done first or the soldering will melt and will have to be redone and so on and so forth. Experimenting with this stuff can get very frustrating at times but I learn a lot through it.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
Scrap metal animals is my special tea. From bolts on the side of the road, flatware from the thrift store, broken things people give, to old bike parts, I use it all to create insects, birds and mammals. Giving the creatures ‘life’ is one of the most important parts of creating these sculptures to me. Positioning the eyes in such a way to give the appearance that it is looking back at you creates the illusion the pieces of junk stuck together are a living creatures. Minute adjustments to brows, textures around the eyes and positions of the head is where it is either made into a ‘life’ or remains a pile of trash.
What was your favorite childhood memory?
One of my favorite memories from my childhood was spending countless hours in the woods with my brothers building forts out of sticks and random boards.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.bruisedreedstudio.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bruised_reed_studio/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bruisedreedstudio/
- Youtube: https://www.facebook.com/bruisedreedstudio/
Image Credits
Katie Jeffery
