Tom Gingras

 

Tom Gingras has been dancing with the flame for thirty-five years as a sculptor in metal art and teaching at Austin Community College since 1988. Tom has been Departmental Director of the Art Metals Program at ACC and also served as Department Chair of the Welding Department from Fall 2003 until the Fall of2006. As ACC's first teacher in "Art Metals", Tom was in on the ground floor with then Department Head, Warren Donworth, of what has become a Nationally and Inter-nationally recognized and prestigious program offering degree plans in Art Metals, Metalsmithing, and Metal Sculpture as well as Jewelry Design, Fabrication and Casting, Stone Setting and repair. Tom began his soon to be published first book, The Art Of Welded Sculpture, during his sabbatical leave in 2000 granted by Austin Community College to write, further his metal smithing skills, and nurture his creative spirit. During this sabbatical leave, Tom also began a major commission piece in stainless steel entitled "Angel Dance", a 12 feet tall pair of angels which was subsequently installed suspended in an 18' high stairwell in a home in West Lake Hills. Tom's mastery of welded sculpture has been demonstrated in his work and countless commission pieces for many years, and is beautifully and masterfully displayed in his current commission piece, the extraordinary dragon entitled "Sevenheart", shown by courtesy of it's new owner, Brian Buckler of Lake Travis. Tom specializes in a technique he calls "tack and bend", whereby rods of virtually any welded material are tack-welded into place and bent to the desired outline. Open areas are then filled to create fluid "ribbons" of materials and the entire surface is welded on both sides. This very difficult, laborious, and unique style is strikingly exhibited in much of Tom's work. His work elegantly expresses organic, fluid, dynamic forms captured in a frozen moment of action utilizing harmonious lines and grace-full, elongated "S" curves, in the spirit ofthe Renaissance masters, but with the freedom offered by the strength of metals. Tom states: "I embrace the challenge of attempting to express un-solid things like smoke, fire, mist, hair, or water, and energy forms in motion, thereby touching something of the common essence that we share in our human experience and evolving consciousness. I like to think of these forms mingling with and embracing the spaces that they share".