Sculptor John Lopez was born and raised on a ranch in Western South Dakota. In the midst of a successful career in bronze sculpting, Lopez discovered an exciting new direction: scrap iron sculpting. “I am never bored! I look forward to each new creation, and it is helping me grow and develop as an artist,” he says. As he John explains on his website: “This unusual detour started when his beloved aunt, Effie Hunt, died in a rollover car accident. Lopez moved to his widowed Uncle Geno Hunt’s ranch to build a family cemetery; his aunt would to be the first laid to rest there. Uncle Geno opened his home and welding shop to Lopez, who completed a fence around the cemetery, then ran out of material. The ranch is 35 miles from the nearest town or post office, so he went looking through the scrap iron on site. After some experimentation, he finished a gate into the cemetery, and then made a small angel peering over the top of the gate. The project gave him much personal satisfaction, and everyone who saw it was amazed at the result. A new career path was born in that cemetery. Not wanting to depart from his bronze casting expertise, John found a way to merge the two art forms into a new hybrid sculpture of everyday objects mixed with limited edition bronze castings. Hybrid Metal Art, a sculptural fusion of figurative and funk, a blend of iron and bronze."
