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S. Jessica Burnham-Hinton

yellowdog2002@hotmail.com
Dallas, Texas

 

  
 

Jessica Burnham-Hinton - Meribel
Maribel

  

Galleries:
Art251, Keller, Texas
Art251, Trinity River, Dallas, Texas
1727, Dallas, Texas

I discovered metal as my medium in 1976, while taking a silversmithing class in college. I then trained to be a professional jeweler, working in gold and silver. Despite a long, successful, career as a jeweler, I longed to create larger objects. So, in 2007, I decided to pursue welded steel sculpture. I love the medium, and am delighted with the success I am experiencing. Most of my sculpture is made with scrap metal and found objects. I use old shovels, rebar, expanded metal, fence parts, car fenders, garden edging, patio furniture, stove parts, some things I can't identify. The down side of making art in this manner, is that collecting scrap metal becomes a compulsion! You will see me out scavenging on bulk trash week, and driving around with odd pieces of steel in my truck or car. My friends give me gifts of old rusty implements. Then, I end up with little piles of metal everywhere-- the patio, the storage closet, the bed of my truck, sometimes even in my living room!

  
 

Jessica Burnham-Hinton - Ike
Ike

   Jessica Burnham-Hinton  

 

Sculptor welds beauty from scrap metal

Photos by Mona Reeder, Dallas Morning News Staff Photographer
By RITA COOK, Special Contributor
Published: 23 September 2011 05:54 PM

You wouldn’t expect to see large metal mermaids center stage in a Dallas apartment that’s only 600 square feet, but that’s where 52-year-old artist Jessica Burnham-Hinton houses them. The sculptures are Matilda (the green one) and Maribel (who sits on a rock).
“They can go outside, and I’d love to see them by somebody’s pool,” says Burnham-Hinton.
Although Burnham-Hinton started metal sculpting late in life, she is making up for lost time with her scrap-metal mermaids, garden spirits and bells. “Given that I weld outside in the Texas heat, I could have picked something easier to do,” says the artist, who was 48 when she took up the medium.

Matilda is a combination of deep-sea colors, including a green car fender, green garden edging and a pearly blue air tank. “She was my first really serious steel sculpture. I was developing my technique and collecting materials to meet my vision of how this mermaid should be. So there is no reference to any other work and no self-consciousness about her being a brazen mermaid with a breastplate made from a car fender,” Burnham-Hinton says.

  

Jessica Burnham-Hintin with Matilda
Jessica with Matilda

  
 

Jessica Burnham-Hinton - Butterfly Bell
 Butterfly Bell

  

The artist finds sheer joy, she says, in creating works using garden edging, gas cylinders, parts of patio furniture, Christmas tree stands, burglar bars, plow shoes, galvanized pipes, lamp finials and even a lightning rod.

“I especially like old farm and garden implements,” she says. “Rusty shovel heads make great garden spirit faces. Really, I pick up steel of any sort and the occasional piece of brass or copper.”

With her focus on nature, Burnham-Hinton says “many ideas come from the pieces of metal I find, like the water-meter cover that led to a mermaid or the seaweedlike twisted scrap metal that became Aquafoliage. There are things in nature I want to portray, such as a lily or a dragonfly, and I have to go out and find the metal pieces to make them with.”

Still in the part-time phase of her artistic endeavors, she works a full-time job in inventory control to pay the bills and takes welding classes at Dallas’ Creative Arts Center.

Scavenging sidewalks on bulk-trash weeks and driving the streets with odd pieces of steel in her car, Burnham-Hinton says her friends also give her a variety of old, rusty implements. “Since practically any type of steel can be welded into a sculpture, that’s OK,” she says. The artist makes about a dozen pieces a year; smaller items, such as the bells ($125 to $200) made out of oxygen tanks, are best-sellers.

“Depending on how you look at it,” she says, “this is either therapy or an addiction, since when I am welding, nothing else exists.”

 

Jessica Burnham-Hinton - Two-face
Two-Face
 

Where to buy

Jessica Burnham-Hinton’s works sell from $100 to $3,200; the garden spirits and bells are priced under $200. You can see her work at the Trinity River Audubon Center’s nature store. She is also a member of the Texas Sculpture Association (www.txsculpture.com).