From his youth, Nicholas Swearer was greatly fascinated with the arts. Many of his close relatives were artists themselves, and he found it easy to immerse himself in the world of art. Painting, drawing, anything that involved creating interested him. At the age of 11, he created his first metal sculpture, a tree made out of old roofing nails. He was even asked to be a representative for the U.S. at the International Arts Festival in Glasgow, Scotland when he was only seventeen. He and a few others traveled to Scotland to meet with people from all over the world and discuss art. Nick’s passion for creating has always been the driving factor in his life, but when asked in an interview when he first believed that art would become a career for him, he answered, “I don’t really know to be honest, it just kind of happened.” His philosophy of doing what he loves to do, no matter the cost, has led him to become a fairly well known and successful member of the art community, with metalwork and sculpting being his favorite and most prominent form of work. He lives and works in Connecticut on a sprawling and beautiful land where he has ample room to sculpt (including his own bronze pouring studio). Why metalwork? Nick describes physical art coming in two main forms: additive (such as metalwork) and subtractive (such as wood carving). Nick is able to formulate his ideas by adding onto pieces. Taken from his own website, “I use the historical and permanent medium of figurative bronze sculpture. Sculpture takes up our physical space and does not rely on written or spoken language for the communication of ideas. Sculpture is its own language, made up of an infinite number of visual and tactile elements.”
The Best Time to Look at Nick Sweater's Art, I mean Swearer's, is All the Time!
“An artist should hold highly a sense of responsibility to others.”
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16 year old Nick Swearer designed and constructed Iggy, the giant iguana, that has sat outside the Science Museum entrances since 1978.