(inspirational music) (grinder buzzing) - Half of the fun about creating something is the spontaneity of it.

(grinder buzzing) My name is Jesse Meyer and I'm a metal sculptor.

(hammer tapping) With metal sculpture, I kind of fell into it with this endeavor to create spaces and interiors, furniture.

(grinder buzzing) So I bought a welder, bought a saw and a grinder, and taught myself.

It wasn't ever part of the plan, but once I got into it, I really enjoyed it and been doing it ever since.

(grinder buzzing) I learned all these metal skills by making furniture interiors, and the logical conclusion later in life was to combine these two things, this new technique of process of materials with, you know, metals, bronze, with different things, and now implement them into sculpture.

(welding torch crackling) The different metals, a lot of steel and stainless steel, but what I really like to use is bronze.

It's just an amazing material to work with.

It's beautiful, it's versatile, and it's got history to it.

(gentle music) With my background in metal fabrication, I am trying to utilize those skills instead to offer something a little bit different.

(gentle music continues) Now I'm taking bronze sheet material, rod, stock material, manipulating it, hammering it into different forms and polishing it and layering it and combining it in different methods to create overall sculptures.

(machine buzzing) One of my primary interests would be in figurative sculpture.

I love the human form.

I love the expressions and faces, and there's just so much that can be communicated through the human body and experience.

(gentle music continues) What's exciting me about it is taking this process, I haven't seen it before, taking metal, sheet metal, forming it, layering it into different pieces and creating overall, the overall piece.

Looking at an individual element of the body and seeing the beauty in that, isolating it, and then reapplying it to the overall.

So if you look at any of the layered pieces in my figurative works, each individual piece will be something interesting to look at.

(gentle music continues) Working in this process for the figurative pieces, I need to sometimes work at a larger scale.

It's almost easier, in some extent, the larger pieces, you need more brute force and you can actually move the metal.

(gentle music continues) I was putting an aquarium in my home and I was really excited about creating the environment for the fish, you know, this really Zen garden sort of thing inside the aquarium.

So with like fish on the brain, I'm looking out into my yard with a coffee and I'm picturing fish swimming through my trees and along the ground, along the grasses and in the features as if my backyard was an underwater scene.

And I was like, "Wow, that'd make a really fun sculpture."

You can interact with it, you can place it in different locations each time you do a little yard work, and it kind of adds an element of life in your landscape.

(upbeat music) The process for fabricating the fish to make these more efficiently was to build a press.

Never having any experience with this process or tooling, I started in and I built myself a press so I can basically cut a profile of the fish, place it in the press and press it out and it does the majority of all that hard work of forming the two halves that the fish are made out of.

I make them out of bronze, stainless steel, and regular steel.

The bronze are probably the most popular.

(machine buzzing) They only weigh maybe a couple pounds.

The small one's about 12 inches long and the large one's about 16 inches long.

I do different patina work on 'em in order to give them different character, clear coat 'em to protect them from the elements.

I happen to get into a little bit of jewelry.

With the fish and all the bronze work that I do, I have tons of scrap pieces, small pieces that are kind of difficult to make something out of.

Basically, I thought it'd be fun to take some of these scrap pieces and look at the shapes that exist, curl 'em around and make simple cuffs out of 'em, and then I do patina work on top of 'em to give 'em a little extra character.

(upbeat music) You get to create something, problem solve it on the fly.

It's exciting.

(grinder buzzing) That's the way I prefer to work.

I know it's very scary, but there's nothing like trial by fire.

It forces you to do it.

You can come out the other end stronger.

(machine buzzing) I'm driven by accomplishing things that I find difficult.

It's a personal challenge.

(upbeat music) I think people viewing my art see that and can appreciate it as well.

(upbeat music continues) [Narrator] Thanks for watching the Arts page.

Please like, subscribe, and turn on notifications for more stories of art in our community.