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by Ron Zawistowski
(Grand Rapids, Michigan)

I am a graduate of Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I earned my BFA there in 1997, majoring in Illustration. I became interested in welding in 1998 while searching for unique objects to place in the backgrounds of a series of portraits that I was planning. After finding nothing suitable for my needs, I sought to make my own objects from the scrap in the shop where I worked, and upon doing so, I walked through a door into a world I wasn't sure I understood. I'm not sure I ever will either, but since then I have been exploring the world of welded sculpture, trying to find my place within it.
I have no studio. I don't even own my own welder. I get little time to work on art because I still work in the same shop I worked in when I graduated from Kendall. Despite those things, I still produce a piece of work on occasion. My work is small because first of all, I get almost all of my scrap steel from the place I work, and everything there is small. Second, I don't own a vehicle that is capable of transporting heavy loads. Third, as I mentioned above, I have no studio in which to work, so everything I create must be portable so I can get it to and from work, the place I do all of my welding.