Skinks are quick, slick, and a little mischievous — which made turning one into stainless steel both a challenge and a thrill. This piece stretches almost four feet nose to tail, its body tapering and curving like it’s ready to dart away. Stainless, of course, doesn’t like to play along with smooth curves and tapers, especially since I cold-shape everything after coloring. Once the torch lays down those blues and golds, I can’t go back with heat, so every bend has to be coaxed without buckling corners.

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The trickiest detail was the black striping. Stainless won’t give me a true black, so I invented my own solution: burning hundreds — maybe thousands — of tiny holes with the torch, then backing each one with small blackened pieces of metal. It’s painstaking, but it lets the black shine through like scales, and it worked for the arms and fingers too. As a bonus, that scorched texture let me disguise a few seams, helping the curves flow more naturally.

For me, this sculpture is equal parts puzzle and play — finding ways to make stubborn steel snake smoothly, hide seams in “burns,” and turn an elusive little reptile into a permanent wall-dwelling creature. This one can be found "climbing" a clients chimney. Poised as though it could dart at any moment!

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This sculpture is wall hanging and safe to be kept outside.