While some use paint, fabric, chalk or pencil to make art, Jon Bander uses scrap metal and a welding torch.
He’s only been making welding art and sculptures for just over a year now, but so far he has made approximately 40 pieces, including a giant bird made from more than 400 utensils called “Cutlery Carnivore,” and his own take on the extraterrestrial from the 1979 sci-fi movie “Alien.”
Eventually, this Turners Falls native hopes to make welding art his full-time job.
Bander first combined welding and art for a psychology class in high school. The final project’s criteria was to make something artistic that related to psychology in some way, so Bander decided to make a brain out of metal.
“The outside was covered in five-eighth nuts and the separation between the two hemispheres were bike chains,” he said. He added gears and faucet handles for the final touch.
He got an A.
“That’s what got me into it, and I haven’t really stopped since then,” he said. “That really inspired me to keep going.”
Looking at his artwork, one might be able to tell that not only does he derive his style from steampunk influences, but he also gets inspiration from sci-fi movies, especially movies directed by Guillermo del Toro. Del Toro is famous for his dark fantasy and gothic films.
One of the main reasons Bander started welding is because his older brother is a welder, too. Bander went through all of the same programs his brother completed; attending Franklin County Technical School– graduating in 2013— and studying pipe welding and structural steel at the Advanced Welding Institute in Burlington, Vt.
“We have a brotherly competition, a one-upmanship,” Bander admitted. His brother is now a welding inspector, and Bander is now taking art classes at Greenfield Community College while also making art and working part-time as a caretaker at the Greenfield Center School.
Bander said he finds the concept of welding very interesting, and perhaps the fact that not many people know what it entails makes it more intriguing.
“There’s so many different directions you can go with it,” Bander said. “It’s really versatile in that aspect.”
While Bander said he generally creates the art for himself, he’s gotten a few paid commissions to make welding art, including one from Hawks & Reed Performing Arts Center to craft their logo. Bander’s artwork now hangs, illuminated, behind the stage at the venue.
“It was really nice of them to support a local artist,” he said.
He also makes artistic presents for his mother, also an artist, who owns the local gallery, Nina’s Nook.
He’s even participated in a few craft shows, including one last October at Three Sisters Sanctuary in Goshen. Bander will be one of the featured artists there this year.
“Whenever I do a big piece, I’m like ‘Oh, this is the best one I’ve made,” Bander said. “But it changes all the time.”
It took him a moment to mull over his favorite pieces, but he said so far his favorites might be the piece he made for Hawks and Reed, “Cutlery Carnivore” and “Alien.”
“Probably by the time I make another one I’ll have a new favorite,” he laughed.
“With each project, I learn something new and I try to do better than the last time,” Bander said. “I try to one-up myself.”
While at the tech school, Bander had a chance to craft his own projects rather than some of the assigned projects. However, he admits that learning the fundamentals of welding is just as important as learning how to craft art.
“I really pay attention to the quality of the work I’m doing as well as the creativity,” he said.
He didn’t do many “artsy” welding projects until after high school, but said he’s been creating art all his life.
Bander said an average project can take anywhere between 35 and 60 hours to complete, but it varies depending on the size of the artwork.
“Cutlery Carnivore” took Bander about seven weeks to craft, although he didn’t work on it every day.
“I probably put in about 60 or 70 hours on it,” he said.
The time he spends on the project is all welding; he doesn’t sketch any plans beforehand.
“It’s easier for me to visualize in my head,” he said.
Sometimes his original vision for the piece changes based on how the materials work together.
Bander’s workshop sits down a hill on the side of his house. A passerby may see it as a small tool shed, but to Bander it is much more. Scraps of material waiting to be melted and twisted into artwork sit outside the shed, and inside it’s a welder’s haven. He shares the space with a glassblower friend.
“If it’s warm out, I’ll get out of work around 8 or 9 (p.m.) and be down there until 2 in the morning,” he said. “On a good week, I spend at least 15 to 20 hours down there.”
The majority of the metal Bander works with is steel, and he loves finding various scrap metal to use. He sorts through scrap piles at nearby bike shops, and Bicycles Unlimited has “donated” a lot of their scrap material to him.
His friends and family also give him materials as they come across them.
“I asked a lot of people for silverware,” he said of “Cutlery Carnivore.”
“It’s harder to acquire than I thought it would be,” he continued. “A lot of people don’t want to get rid of their cutlery.”
Turners Falls’ odds-and-ends shop, LOOT found+made, is another place he finds a lot of his materials, including the large knives that form his metal raptor’s fanned tail.
Despite the intricacy of Bander’s pieces, he is humble about his welding talent.
“I don’t think it’s very hard,” Bander said of welding. “It’s almost like a glue gun for me — a quick zap and you get two pieces stuck together.”
Staff reporter Christine Wisniewski started at the Greenfield Recorder in 2018. She covers Montague and Gill. She can be reached at cwisniewski@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 258.