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>> My name is Chris Stuyck.
I'm a metal artist, and I own Stuyck Company.
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Stuyck Company was established in 1998.
We were helping out contractors at that time
and also doing some unique art pieces as we could afford,
and slowly through time,
we start making enough money and headway with reputation
that we could start focusing more on artwork.
My company's been lucky in that we've networked,
and a lot of people think highly of what I do,
so we've been invited to make wonderful pieces
that celebrate South Carolina.
We've built the Hootie and the Blowfish monument
in Five Points.
We've built a wonderful gazebo for Hampton-Preston Mansion.
We have things at the zoo that we've made.
We have a lot of stuff along the Riverwalk.
We have lines of park furniture.
We like to build stuff that's artistically pleasing,
site specific,
and functional more than anything else.
I think what attracted me most towards metal,
steel and steel for one, would be its permanence,
its use in our society for just about everything
we deal with from day to day.
It makes our cars.
It makes our lamp posts.
It makes everything under the sun that we use.
We even put our fruits and vegetables
in cans made of steel.
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When you look at art, and you look at metal in art,
the people who do it, they want a certain permanence.
They want a piece that lasts the ages,
the eons, that's going to be there.
They don't want a temporary piece.
I've also found that metal is very predictable.
Metal shapes stay the same.
You can alter them.
You can make interesting, wonderful pieces out of them.
Metal artists know this, and they build their work
to rust or to not rust, to have a presence about them,
a permanence.
You never see a dainty metal piece out in public,
unless perhaps jewelry if you want to go that way,
but that's a whole different style of metal art.
We work with other artists as well.
It's vital as an artist
to communicate with other artists,
because everybody has a viewpoint.
Everybody has an idea,
and they're usually helpful in the creative process.
People who collaborate in my art pieces,
we just have fun with it,
try not to take too much credit for it.
We just go at it.
Great fun!
My name is Will Bryan.
I'm the founder of Public Works of HeART.
We believe that all communities should be beautiful,
and we use public art to make that happen.
My background is in graphic design,
so I traditionally work in a 2-D,
two dimensional medium in print or in digital,
so it was wonderful working with Chris,
because his background obviously is in metal sculpture,
and so he has a wealth of knowledge and was able to
help teach me, help me think about things
that might work in two dimensions
but don't work in three dimensions,
and be able to overcome some of those hurdles
before they ever happened in the design process.
The piece that I'm sitting on right now is the Butterfly Bench
in the Cayce River Arts District
here at the entrance of the Cayce Riverwalk,
which leads to the Congaree River,
and so the whole concept behind this was
we wanted to celebrate the nature
or the natural setting around here,
and we wanted it to be very whimsical and fun,
so it needed to be beautiful,
and all of the designs and everything in it
are just kind of meant to reflect the organic nature
of the flight of a butterfly or the falling of leaves
or the flow of water
that are all part of this specific community,
and it's turned out really, really great.
So one of the unique things about creating public art
with steel is just that, it's public,
so it needs to be safe for everything from toddlers,
all the way up to senior citizens,
everybody in between,
and so you have to think about the way you design it,
everything from the size of the holes that are within it
or the edges and how soft they are,
or how much something bends or sticks out,
because you don't want somebody to be able to get hurt on it,
while at the same time,
it needs to be beautiful, it needs to be functional,
it needs to be safe.
So one of my favorite pieces here
in the Cayce River Arts District
is the Light Diamond.
It's over seven foot tall and completely stainless steel.
It turned out fantastic.
Since it's stainless steel,
the sun shines brightly
and reflects the surface of it during the day.
At night time, as it gets dark,
a light sensor turns on the lights on the inside of it,
and it actually reflects the metal from the inside out
through the holes and the designs within it,
so it's a very different experience
during the day versus at night time,
which is kind of the concept of it
between the suns and the moons all the way around it.
I kind of enjoy all my pieces that I've done,
my art that I've made.
They use it.
They come to me and say they like it.
I usually ask how they're interacting with it,
because that's important to me.
I put a whole lot of thought and effort into what I do.
It's important to me that whoever looks at it,
whoever comes to see it,
comes back and looks at it again.
That is the ultimate compliment.
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