14 | T H E B A R OSSA MAG
“A couple of years ago I started
getting larger commissions and
realised it was probably more of
a business than a hobby.”
Proving the adage that one
man’s trash is another’s
treasure, Joel sources scrap
metal from local farms and
transports them to his Sedan
studio with his dad’s semi
trailer.
“Usually it’s whole machinery,”
says Joel. “I never know exactly
what I need so I guess it’s always
a battle to find the most suitable
items; I might strip apart a
header but all those pieces will
never go to just one project.” “I look back at my first horse
and I hate it,” he says. “Back
then I would create a shell to
make the shape, so the inside
was hollow and in quite a few
spots you could see inside and
through it.
With a single draft horse
representing over 250 hours of
work, Joel admits it has been a
steep learning curve. “Now I literally start from the
inside out and layer all the way
out. The pieces are two or three
times heavier and use more
materials, but they look very
solid and have a lot of presence.”
However Joel’s smaller pieces
are equally striking.
“I do really like the finish of
the little birds,” he says. “I run a
brass brush over to finish them
which gives them a brass colour
and they end up being these
lovely little golden-looking
things.”