Latest / The Story Behind The Ink / Episode:5 part 1. Forged in Steel:The Art of Seeing Something From Nothing
Transcript
- Robert Moss: Welcome to the Story Behind the Ink, the podcast where we go beyond the surface, break through the labels, and uncover the stories, struggles, and passions that make us who we are. And today we're doing things a little differently. My guest has never had a tattoo, but he spent his life turning cold hard metal into incredible work of art, from lifelike stainless steel trees to amazing animals and sculptures. Because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter whether your art is on your skin. For it's from metal or written through the experiences of your life. Everybody has a story and everybody deserves to be heard. Today's guest is Drew Shook. We're gonna dive straight into it, Drew. Let's do it. So when did you realize you could take a piece of metal and turn it into something that made people stop and stare? man, it's a long time ago. I when I kinda got into this, I I was going to school in Charleston, South Carolina and I broke my back snowboarding on like like a hill, like a golf course. I was home for the winter, just to killing some time. Broke my back, got laid up for a bit, didn't get to go back to school down Charles to messed that up. I had to find a new realm of life. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm getting there. So is that why you don't go snowboarding with us when we go? I mean I'll go this year. My knees are kind of bad, but I think I I got some knee braces. So I'm down to go. We can go this year. Yeah, we're gonna have to hit some for sure. I'm excited. I'm down, I'll try to keep up with you guys. I feel like I get I hook one person in every year, bro. Like Cade was my last victim. I was like, come on, bro, you wanna do any ski? I don't he's like, I'll try snowboarding. He went out there all day and just fell, busted his butt, yeah, all day. And then the next time we took him to Snowshoe, West Virginia, he got the bug, bro. He like, Come on man, let's go. Come on, let's go, come on, let's go. So when we got back, every time he was like, Come on man, let's go get it. Yeah, I it's better than snowshoe for sure. It's a little more little more snow. That's nice. He started doing jumps and stuff. He took for sure. That's cool. I just like to cruise. An old man cruise now. Back back and knees and everything's busted. So Same. My well, my shoulders hurt real bad. So anytime I take a fall, it always lands on my shoulder, bro. Oof. Always. But yeah, I guess circling back to that, I I was just laid up for a while with a broken back. And needed to get back into some form of school. And my stepdad was just like, you know, you're always creating, you're always drawing, you should should take welding. And I was like, I didn't know. I kinda know what welding was. you've seen Flashdance and some other things. And you know, you kind of your eyes start to like and your brain starts to connect the dots. But so I like applied for a class, a local tech school, abtech took the first class in mid welding. I don't know like I don't even remember much about that class. I don't remember like what the premise was. I think I barely made it through it. But something about like getting like the very end of it, something clicked and I signed up for the whole program. And one thing led to another. And then before I knew it, the whole thing about that class is you sign up for the long term thing and you become like you get the men it's a metallurgy program. so you end up with a pretty legit degree. Whether you want to go be like a pipe welder or follow metallurgy and then go to a higher engineering school within the metal field in sales or just the full development of lab work with metal. They have a good program, they kick you off pretty well. But I think they oddly enough have a photo of me something I made that they never contacted me about on their A B Tech website, which is funny. Well lost it. I think it's like a I have a really cool client, this woman in Deborah Martin. She's a Swannanoa native, beautiful woman. And she's like a local company in town where she brings teachers in from all around the world and finds them work in the country. And somehow she's made a really cool business out of it. And she I did a few things for her. Her buddy Shawn got me set up with her to make this cool global map on one of her walls of the introway of her business, which is it's one in our area. And then from there, just kind of kept keeping a conversation with the show up in a restaurant. I made some things for her there at the restaurant. And then she's always like been into dragons and she would joke about getting a dragon made. So we just one day we just kicked it off and I was like, let's just put a dragon in your backyard. And so she has this huge boulder. It's bigger than this wall. And it's probably like maybe twenty inches thick, but it's laying on its knife edge. Like this. So basically me and some friends, or for buddy Sean included, built this like 15 foot tall dragon and like built this like armature frame behind the rock where it looks like it's sitting on the boulder. But really like a lot of it's sitting on this frame behind the boulder. And it's just perched up and it's like this she had like an idea of like an aesthetic she wanted for the dragon. So I kind of went off that and just built the whole thing in the shop and then went and installed it in a few days. And you said that's located in Swan Long. It is, it's trying to get. Right above Beaver Tree School. School that's like is that the art the art school? It's not the art school. it's not it's like a little elementary school that's kind of like almost parallel back behind that road of like where angles would be back behind all that. okay, I got you. I think I know what you're talking about. Yeah, but I mean going back to what you asked me, I you know, I got into welding and what sparked the interest, like I I think the first thing I ever made was I mean something for my grandfather. This man raised me because my mom traveled a lot when I was a kid at pay bills. And he he's a big smoker, so I made him an ashtray and he was just like, that's that's all right, but you're not gonna make any money doing that. So that didn't really that didn't really wake me up and be like, this is this is cool. This is a cop just making and wasting time. But I made a cool thing for my mom, made this big wine chiller and she fell in love with it. It was just this like kind of cheesy looking sculptural elements, put ice in and wine. And I was like, this is cool. This is what I want to do. And I remember I have another really good friend as I got into this spectrum, my friend Koei, who he would be great for this show. He was a tattoo guy. He was a key grip in LA for a long time. Like then moved to New Orleans after LA. He got hit by Katrina. Or was it Katrina? Yeah, I think it was Katrina, yeah. Bombed that. He moved to Asheville. We got in one of the same he joined one of the the welding classes at A B Tech. And we became really good friends and he started a company here and we started doing stuff around town, railings, stairs, house stuff, restaurant stuff. And he just pushed me to be bigger and better. And I one day I looked at him and I was like, one day I wanna I don't wanna do railings. I wanna do large scale sculpture and travel the world. And this was twenty years ago. And he was like, You can make it happen if you work hard enough, and oddly oddly it haven't. And that little s like Just that progression of persistence and luck and staying on the grind got me there, which is a a pretty fun little fun little timeline story. Was there a moment in your life when creating art stopped being something you did and became part of who you are? It's a D pusher. I got a bunch of man. Yeah, I mean, you know, I think as kids we all Spend her time with these fantasies of whether you're locked up at a Sunday school sermon, drawing on whatever papers available or making paper hairplanes in class, into just doodling notes through and throughout school or just hardships in life. And I think over time, you know, one thing led to another and I guess the the real way making it like a life a life progression is getting paid to make art, whether it was I was working for someone else or it was my own my own stylistic like vision. That that changed the game, you know, and I don't think I really noticed it at first because you know, you're so hungry to like do all these things. And I've you know, I've got my own like welding company here in town and I'll I'll do just about anything, but there are a lot of things I'm tired of doing. But if someone comes up to me like, hey, can you weld this fork for me? Or can you fix my dump truck? Or it's like, yeah, yeah, let's I got you. Let's do it. But yeah. The the thing that really brings me enjoyment are the one-off things, because the second you have to do something over and over and over again, it becomes complacent. You lose your place and maybe your self of identity. And I I can't imagine it's not much different in the world of tattooing where someone's like come in, they want A scorpion or the the worst bro now is everybody's creating these AI images. they're just like I'm talking about like the most like I'm talking about like putting putting the Last Supper with like all twelve disciples But like having all that botched up and like put on your finger or like some just like off the wall. Just the stupidest thing that people expect. That's why they say like we're multiple things. we're we're a clown, we're houdini, we're a doctor, psychiatrist, artist, therapist, you know, like a little bit of everything. So I mean people come to like tell you their life story and they get deep and they don't really realize they're doing it until you're giving them that vulnerable sensation of a little bit of pain and they just open up, right? It's funny, like the people that like tell me the craziest stories when I'm tattooing. I figured they'd be the first ones that wanna come on the show. You see what I'm saying? I've I got some clients that will literally break it all down. And I'm just like ain't heard nothing from nobody since I started the podcast. Yeah. So I was like, y'all dig back into their will where they said they would join. Well then they're like, Well, you should tattoo and do your podcast as you're tattooing. Well it's kinda hard to concentrate like on detailed stuff. when you're tattooing and trying to talk and trying to read something. Yeah. It's just too much. It can be interesting, but that's a whole nother whole other thing. And I feel like maybe if the tattoo was already there and I was just chilling and doing a tattoo then yeah, I could do that all day long. touching up or something. Well not even that. if say the outline and stuff was there already or if I just had to pack a bunch of black or pack a bunch of color. Where I wasn't half constantly look at an image to try to replicate it. If I had to take away every tool in your shop tomorrow and left you with only imagination, what would you create first? probably create a storyboard, this the storyboard and an idea and then and then turn that into something. I figured it was gonna be some crazy tool that you could imagine to like make your life's like so much easier or something. I mean that would be the AI, wouldn't it? If it could be that easy, just create. It's a coming. It's a coming, bro. I was tell I was me and Ashley was fighting with friggin' Paramount plus trying to get it like hooked up on the TV. And so I would click on it and then it only give you an option to subscribe. It don't give you no option to sign in. So I was like, bro. So I literally asked Google how to do it. And I sent her a picture of my screen. They're like, you're on the Roku screen. They do that to advertise this and advertise that. You need to be on here. Click this. I'm like, what the heck? Now I thought, storyboard, what do I want to do? And then that would probably come into play as the tool I would need. And I would think of that tool. And that would be some wild, metamorphosis of some AI generated, I don't need tools anymore. I can just create anything out of it. I can just tell this machine to do this and it'll just pop it out. Yeah, things are too easy nowadays. What's something you had to sacrifice in your personal life to become the artist you are today? And was it worth it? Mm. A lot of that comes with like time and where you put time. Which I'm sure you felt that in your life. I'd say relationships. Yeah. Either goals or relationships and other avenues, or that you're like I spent all my a lot of my life living out of a bag and traveling around a lot and working for artists and trying to come back home here with family and yeah, relationships. For sure, man. Yeah I'm Surprised my wife stayed with me as long as she lucky man. I'm telling you, bro. Yeah, definitely definitely burglar relationship bridges. I'm not I'm not perfect, I'm sure. And a lot of artists, everyone I've ever heard of trying to make it when they started coming up and had a girlfriend or something, they never made it. You you can't do it. Or they didn't make it and still had the girlfriend. I mean this world's economy and everything else that's involved, you have to hustle so hard. That's what you want to do. If you don't want a standard nine to five and then all your free time goes to your relationship and partner, you gotta work double what everyone else is doing just to find a plateau before you can give yourself to somebody else. And you're not even giving yourself at that point, you're just giving to the cause. When you create one of your lifelike stainless steel trees, how do you make something made of metal feel like it's actually growing? Well, with those trees, Those were those were fun, a really good experience. a lot of that was involved with just growing up in nature and not growing up in the city like some people might have and see the reverse effect of that. Weren't you on some weren't you in a magazine? I forget the name of it, but like twenty twenty one, I believe. Show me this magazine, don't know. You don't know? I don't know. Bro, I have to like look it up and show it to you. Okay. Trying to think. So that is crazy. You don't even know. bro, I've like we I looked it up earlier. I was telling somebody about you. And we're looking it up. And your image of you working at the shop where we're at now, you're in there welding with your helmet. At our shop. Yeah. Okay. And it's a magazine. I just forget the name of the magazine. And I can't believe you don't even know. I've had a few interviews on just a couple, but I I don't know. I'm I'm kinda bad to recognize things about myself because I I don't like to do that, which maybe isn't a good thing. I don't know why, but we'll we're definitely gonna I'll definitely find it when we get done. See if I had a guy in here that actually did all that work, we could have somebody like right there be like, Hey man, pop that up for me real quick. maybe be some Joe Rogan stuff. Yeah, What's the most technical difficult sculpture you've ever attempted and what nearly made you give up on it? Hmm. Or if you've ever about gave up on it. I've definitely had like moments of just feeling beat. Beat. Dogged out, stressed at like my wits' ends. But I was raised by a mean whole mean, hard old man, I told you, And I just didn't have that out, It was like no free lunches, you used to say, the heat's in the tool, when you're cold, you gotta get to work. But I remember Shawn saying something about what he had told you about the birds and the bees. I forget what it was, but it was hilarious. That fool says so much. I don't catch all of it. I'm sure it was worthwhile. It was hilarious. I'll have to ask him again, but it was like I forget what it was. It was it was hilarious. I think it had to do with like a piece of fruit or something. That makes sense with that. I guess I guess to your question though, as one of the bigger projects I've had, but I've had some big ones since, but this this was like I got brought on to be a part of this this sculpture and it was gonna go on top of a ship. The ship just happened to survive Pearl Harbor, it was an oil tanker and then became a fishing vessel for a really long time. And then ended up derelict and was gonna be cut up into pieces and root town, British Virgin Islands. and I got called by a friend of mine that knew someone that was kind of brought this to the table because the government entity was gonna scrap this ship and just cut into pieces and then scrap it down, turn to scrap metal and by one chain of events of another. I had a friend who called me up. He's like, hey, do you want to be part of a sculpture for this really well known guy? And and put a sculpture on a ship and sink it in the Caribbean. I just kind of laughed and hung the phone. I got back to work doing some probably like really, you know, mindless, you know, welding job I was doing at the time. He called me right back and he was like, hey like, don't hang up the phone. I'm not kidding. this can't be real. you're talking about this guy, this guy's name was Richard Branson, a great woman guy, look him up. And so I did. He told me the whole premise, the the the process and the project. He was like, I need you to come up with an idea, and we need to kick this off to this group tomorrow. I was like, Okay, 24 hours. So the ship's 150 feet long, and it's it's a beast, you know, and it's just sitting like listed on this like little harbor, partially sunk and hitting the bottom of this shallow ground. just you know within like not a lot of time thought like okay let's let's go with a kraken let's do this huge like old you know crazy lore of a kraken squid engulfing this thing and being on this and make that like the the idea and then did like a little sample of how it would look to make this and did some timing and a few other things and like they had meeting with like this entrepreneurial group of like people that are just know, done really well for themselves, millionaires staying on this island and hanging out and had a two hour meeting with them and kicked it off and they all jumped in. And then four months later after a lot of meetings, we were I was down there with a crew and we knocked this out in forty-two days. Woo. Yeah, forty-two days with like kind of five people every day and then off and on we have more more and less people and it was like in this scrapyard with like goats and chaos and this boat's like in the water and cruise ships are coming in and turning. We've got like a like a barge in the water that's moving and the cruise ships come in and makes waves and this ship's moving and you're like lifting stuff and it was just like insanely dangerous, crazy hot. Because it's so wet and salty, everything's just you're moist, you're welding with stick welding, high voltage arc, you're getting shocked nonstop. It rains all the time, we're like it was like the environment itself was really intense. The end of the days were nice, they had it, they put us up in a great place, which was really cool. but the work environment was intense. And every night, I'd the main guy come to me, like, hey, what's it what's our deadline looking like? What's our deadline looking like? Because they have these investors. And I was just like, doing the best I can. We're here. We're gonna be here tomorrow. Hopefully, we're gonna be here tomorrow. And we would get days of like all day rain and we couldn't do anything. that was a big project. There's a lot of cool information online about that. It was called the Kodiak Queen. The Kodiak Queen too. The Kodiak Queen, filmed by a really cool guy named Rob Sorrenti and put on by a group of entrepreneurs called the Mavericks and pushed out by Richard Branson. the coolest part about the whole project is I met a really good friend, this guy Josh Wilson. He's brilliant artist. And then my other Really good friend, probably the best friendship I've ever made. It's getting Chris Jordan. He might be the most fascinating person I've ever met. He'd maybe a cool person to interview on here if you ever get him. But crazy South African guy that traveled the world and was like a professional body surfer. And he's had businesses all over the world. He's got commercial dive company down there and then does nonprofits that brings me down there to do all these court pieces. And that led me to that relationship. It's probably been one of the most beneficial relationships of my life. And help me do lot really cool things down there and alter my life in a way that is more positive to think about the ocean and ocean awareness and but circle circling back to your conversation, sorry, a long answer. you're good, bro. That that job that job pushed me. Because I it sounds like yeah, it was Yeah, you know, this 150 foot boat, 80 foot kraken. Like I should have brought the model, I didn't think about it. still have that to this day. That would have been cool but yeah, just like every day, just like you know, ending the night. I was just in the night planning for a few hours for it like passed out of my notes, like thinking, how am I gonna do this? you know, and sometimes like The best thing for us is the hardest thing and and getting pushed into these circumstances where you don't really know what you're worth until you get thrown in the fire. And that was I think the the rush, the bump I got from that was the hardest hit I've ever had in my life. And I I'm still chasing it, to be to be an unfamiliar ground with a big project and a lot of heat on you, that's where I thrive. Otherwise I'm just like a Little lazy sloth, So when you're building an animal or tree or any other sculpture, do you study an anatomy first or do you let your imagination take the lead? it's a bit of both. I really like to be accurate to what what's trying to be portrayed. Mm-hmm. but then at the end of the day, you're working with like it depends on the materials you're working with. you kinda I kinda let the material materials work with the aesthetic of what I'm going for. And then oftentimes when that happens, I kind of like I'll zone out, I'll go different directions. And I'll come to this this like checkpoint where I wake back up and I'm like, this looks good, this looks bad, this looks good, this looks bad. And I you probably can't really do those tattoos because like you can't one and done. Yeah, one and done. Whereas with the welding, you it's like, I just cut it apart, reconnect it. And that's what I like about it. I get I get scared that mean it's the thing with tattoo ever got tattoo because that's it. One and none, you said, you're one that's it. Have you ever started creating one thing and had the metal, the design or a mistake lead you towards something completely different? yeah, yeah, that that totally leads into that last question. That's what I that's what I Yeah. So many times, man. I've even I've even had that happen and clients have asked me for certain things and then I've gotten so excited about the new direction it takes that I'm like I sell them on the new direction. You know, because it's like this is what happened, you trusted me to do this and this is where we're gonna go. So yeah, hundred percent. What's one piece you've created that means far more to you personally than a financial value could ever represent? Told you I had them questions. for me it's it's things I make for people, whether I get paid or not. stuff I do for clients is one thing and that that feels pretty cool. Someone gives you money and trusts you to make this thing. That's that just feels great, But but I make things for people. That makes me feel like my my worth and my purpose is so much better, I've made things for my daughter or a partner or a best friend, you know, and that just like sends it like a my buddy Crystal turned out diver guy made him like this really beautiful gate, and it's just all about his life and he does whale research and diving and it's It's got these old nautical vintage lights on it from the forties and just stuff like that. when you can make a separate thing, something for someone. Mm-hmm. And then they they get this piece for a long time. that's that's the adol BO. About the same with me, like I'm always giving out like raffles and just anything I can do. Just like give me a review and I'll put you in a drawing, you know? Yeah. Like friggin' share my work or add this or do that and I'm like I'm always just free tattoos. I feel bad. Like I'll draw one name and I'll feel bad like want everybody to get a tattoo. Draw like a couple more, you know what I mean? But like I got all y'all. You get straight. No, that's cool. I mean, you know, end game would be like to do really well in some capacity of this this life and what I do and be able to make show young people how to make things and give them some inspiration to do the same vein. 'Cause not everybody's gonna be a the general work enthusiast or do or have the the ability to do certain things. some people need some avenue and, if that happens to be something I do it'd be great to like So as an artist, if you understand the thought and the meaning behind a permanent piece of art, what would a tattoo have to represent for you to finally consider getting one? Mm. I mean, it's a serious commitment. You're asking me to get married. You gotta think about it like this. It's it's the most valuable thing you can ever spend your money on because at the end of the day, it ain't going nowhere. You're always gonna have it. Well that's the thing. I it's not that I've never not wanted to get one. I just don't think I've ever really known what that tattoo would be. I guess it it's been more of a a thought recently, especially now that I'm on on a new show for sure. And if I ever get a tattoo it'll be by this man, I promise you. We'll do it right here. We'll coin back to this this exact response, but Yeah, it would have to involve who I'm as a person who have changed into in some capacity, my family, my friends, and like what my life is where it's about. It would have to like involve all these things. I couldn't I mean unless I got bit by black widow, I'd like, Give me a black widow tattoo because I didn't die or that just seems like you have to do that. You give it by shark. It's like I'll run you over with a tally and we'll put a tally on you. What is it? a telly? Hey, yeah, if you survive something, that's fair enough. I mean I've got so many like crazy scars and injuries I've had that nearly killed me, you know. This wild crooked arm a lot of people know me for. Crooked Arrow Point Straight is a bit of a nickname my grandmother gave me for a long time, but that could be part of the process. And what was it again? What's that? What what's she call your cricket? Crooked arrow points. Crooked arrow points straight. So that's what we that's what you need? Crooked arrow that I got you. Yeah. That'd be perfect. That's my yeah. When people see your finished sculptures, they see the beauty, what part of the process do you wish they could see that would make them appreciate your work even more? I mean that's just the the getting up in the morning and being sore and the all day grinding and those moments of just being like burnt out. You keep pushing. You do these big sculptures and they just wear you out. And it just just i everything everything's like a you know, like a factor. Depending upon the year or like it's cold, it's hot. Summertime in a shop or wintertime in a shop, which maybe you have heat, maybe you don't, you know, or ec economical market of like you be in the middle of a project we're doing things and you bid this project to be one thing and all of a sudden things get expensive and you have to keep changing. Clients may or may not be attuned to that. And it's just an ever changing thing. I just I don't know. I guess them seeing like a condensed version, a timeless version of the whole process, you know, the emotion, which I I always hope gets conveyed at the end. And you know, maybe it is, maybe it's not, but a lot of people see it, you know. If you could build one sculpture with a limited time, unlimited money and no restrictions whatsoever, what would you make? I mean, there's a couple ways I could go. But I've got one of the works that I really want to do, but I wanna do a really, really, really big one. Like a hundred feet, they'd be sick. But it was a thing about like my grandfather and you know, I'm sure a lot of people have this, but like it was just really special for you know and it was it was just Thanksgiving something like a recissory chicken or something, we would save that wishbone, we'd dry it out, we had like a collection, we'd just have like a snap off night. That's cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I have a lot of really cool designs and iterations and I pushed this on a few submissions I've like tried to get in the past few years. I've got a few people who might interested, but I wanna I'll probably start making some eventually pretty soon. But I would love to make this huge, big, beautiful wishbone that's like fifty to a hundred feet. And you see the energy in it as though it was two people, it's like it's being people, like forces are pulling it, and you see the spot where it's like cracking and it's this like beautiful, deep, bright light emitting. So like during the day, you might not see it, but you'll see the fissures in the bone fracture. But at night it'll have light inside it and you'll see that and it'll emanate and just be like Yeah, I don't know. And it that's like that's maybe a personal selfish piece, but yeah, I think it'd be beautiful. Yeah. I've always like just collected them, but like never had a rip party with When I hear a rip party, I think we're about to open some Pokemon packs, bruh. I'm like, let's go. Yeah. Somebody comes over, they just throw like a bag of wishbones down. You're like, what what's that? What's the craziest? reaction you've ever witnessed from someone seeing one of your sculptures in person. Maybe my stepfather, he kinda like, which is which is cool because he's the person that kind of like got me into like welding. He's basically my dad. I call him my dad. He's just been there for me for so long. but had I've been doing work in New York for a long time. I worked for this artist and we just nonstop working. A lot of the work was in upstate New York. Depressing, gray, snowy days, just Endless days of gray and snow, three feet of snow every day. Where was that at? Upstate New York. Up in a place called Oneza, really close to like Cooperstown, which is the baseball hall of fame. Is that close to Plattsburgh, New York? It might be. I don't think I've heard of that. Is that kind of close to kind of close towards Canadian border? Hmm. Where I think where I'm where I'm thinking is probably three hours south, maybe, maybe a little more. It's like Albany. Close to Albany. Yeah. Is that is that part of your part of your area? I worked for Direct T V at the time back when I was on a fifteen, sixteen when I couldn't even work for I was still working for It's one of the things. Yeah. And we were hooking up the local channels down there. So I just always remember that place 'cause it was two, three foot of snow always. I don't care what month it was, it felt like it was snow and it was cold and I hated it. And if you complain about the snow, they'd know you're not from around there. Yeah. But nowadays I'm like, I wonder what kind of skiing they got up that way. You know what I mean? Nah, there's a some great stuff. There's a couple of good spots. Vermont's really nice and there's one spot I went up there Nice and have the younger bones, it could go a little harder. Robert: Bam! Y'all have to wait for the rest of it next week, part two coming next Thursday, y'all. Make sure you hit that like button. Subscribe to the channel. Peace.