We were lucky to catch up with Will Allen recently and have shared our conversation below.
Will, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?
Many different things have helped me grow as a designer and craftsman. After about a year and half of working on my own, learning from the internet, I decided to attend a steel working hobbyist class at a local industrial trades school. I realized the importance of learning from a professional. My instructor was a metal fabricator with over twenty years of experience who also ran his own metal fabrication business. The skills and techniques that I learned from him in a two week period eclipsed everything that I thought I knew up until that moment. The lessons I learned drastically improved my precision, workflow, and mindset as a metalworker. I now greatly value the relationships I’ve built with my mentors and am constantly seeking out knowledge from communities of craftspeople online and locally. A youtube video is no match for a real life teacher.
When I’m low on inspiration or ideas for a sculpture I try to learn a new skill. In my case, I learn a new technique to bend steel, a new cutting process, or evaluate what a new tool can do for me. Oftentimes, these new abilities lead me to a fresh idea. I feel that this discovery also happens in reverse, when I’m obsessed with an idea, but don’t have the knowledge to execute, I’m forced to seek out consultation and grow to meet the demands of a challenging task. For me, learning the craft and the artistic output are married to one another, which is true for all art mediums, but I believe craftsmanship has special weight in a workshop environment. I’m trying to never stop learning and I believe the best way to do that is to never stop experimenting. I used to be afraid to experiment as much as I do now because I was afraid of being inefficient and wasting my time and material. Recently I’ve let this go and now embrace the process of making mockups and practicing things before trying to implement it into a piece, even if I consume more material or end up not achieving the results. For me the act of trying a new thing and failing is better than not trying and learning nothing from it.
I was first introduced to metalworking in high school where I was learning to weld and fabricate in a classroom setting. I had a very charismatic teacher, and the nature of tools and processes were very appealing to me. When the class ended, I felt like I was missing out on an activity that I really enjoyed doing. The onset of COVID resulted in the loss of my summer job and so I considered the possibilities of purchasing some entry level metalworking equipment and selling art made from scrap material. Now, I’ve upgraded almost everything I had in the beginning, found a legitimate source of income, and attached metalworking to my personal identity. In retrospect, I constantly think about how pivotal that decision was to go for it during that time of uncertainty, and how different I’d be today if I didn’t make the initial jump.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
My name is Will Allen and I have created a modest metal sculpture and fabrication brand called BillzBuildz. I was first introduced to welding and metalworking in a high school elective class where, as students, we were given the opportunity to learn basic trade skills. This introduction became a foundation for my growth as a metal artist, and helped guide me into my college major and career as an architect.
I lost my job at the onset of the 2020 COVID pandemic and used the free time to reintroduce metalworking into my life by investing in some entry level equipment and scavenging scrap metal to make yard sculptures. The decision to do so would end up being pivotal in my life and I often think if I hadn’t made that decision would I ever have gotten my operation up and running. My garage became my studio and over the summers and breaks from school I developed my skills as a craftsman and designer working on a range of scales and types of sculpture. I often get my designs from the shape of the material. One of things that makes metal, primarily steel, so amazing to me (and society) is its strength and resilience. The shape of a scrap piece or whatever piece of stock I can afford will guide my sketches and ideas for what it can become. I love the idea of beautifying an industrial product and turning it into art that can endure the elements for many years to come.
The most satisfying moments of being an artist are the times when I get to talk with my clients and discover what they care about. It motivates me through the design process and pushes me towards my best concepts for how to represent an idea through sculpture. Giving someone an abstraction of their own idea that allows them to keep thinking and continually be reminded about whatever it is they care about is special to me. When I’m just making things for my own collection, I pick ideas of my own and try to come up with new ways of representation. I like to experiment with the way a sculpture interacts with the surface it is on, or the way a person can physically interact with a piece.
It is very difficult for me to pinpoint a single mission for what I have going on, but at the foundation of it all is happiness and self satisfaction. The act of spending time in the shop welding, grinding, cutting, and bringing a sketch into fruition makes me enjoy life and feel accomplished. Another aspect is fixing functional objects for people and making simple things a little more beautiful so someone can feel a touch of my happiness in their railing, or some object in their home. I care most about being happy and putting pieces of life into steel.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
My main strategy for building and maintaining my audience is output. I simply just keep making stuff, get as many ideas into steel as I have time for. I think of it as casting a wide net that will produce something compelling for everyone. This encourages me to embrace a broad style and also not get hung up on any one piece. At this stage I really don’t have many followers, and my goal is just to bring them with me on my journey and document my change over time. Hopefully one day someone will see that I’m ready for their next big idea.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.
People like to judge things, especially creative works, its natural for us, and maybe this is why some people think they can’t impress other people. I don’t think this matters at all because at very least the only person you have to impress is yourself. To me creativity is a form of exercise and doesn’t have to mean anything at all to anyone but yourself. I’m my biggest client and at the end of the day it’s about whether or not I am happy with what I create.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.billzbuildz.com/
- Instagram: @billzbuildz