Maine man turns scrap metal into works of art

Steve Minich, Anchor

WARREN, Maine —

Most people might see an old beat up piece of metal as scrap, but one Maine man sees his next work of art.

Jay Sawyer, who is known as the artist JBone, has turned his property in Warren into a metal sculpture garden.

"The material here, being the iron and all of mother nature and the earthy colors, it's all, I guess, that's how I express myself,” Sawyer said.

Sawyer’s eye for metal dates back to his more than 20-year career as a commercial welder.

He now transforms an old piece of worthless scrap into a valued sculpture.

"So instead of spending money on a new material to make a sculpture, a lot of it is if I'm seeing beauty in something that's already served its purpose and is about to be discarded, and I can save that, it just makes so much sense,” Sawyer said.

Over the years. Sawyer has forged his own signature series of spheres and abstracts. Many of his works are on public display across Maine.

“That's one of the beauties of this work is lots of times working with the materials that people are familiar with, like a horseshoe or a railroad spike. So, I think this is a real easy bridge to anybody, whether you're a huge fan of art or not,” Sawyer said.

Sawyer is a graduate of Maine Maritime Academy, and one of his new projects will remember fellow alumni who died on the cargo ship El Faro. It sank off the coast of Florida in 2015 during Hurricane Joaquin.