We were lucky to catch up with Bill Usher recently and have shared our conversation below.

Bill, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?

I’ve been a hands on maker and creative person as long as I can remember. I took art and shop classes throughout school and received a BFA in sculpture. From there, I had jobs in which I was able to use my creative abilities and that taught me many skills in a wide variety of materials. During that time, my wife and I have raised three kids including a pair of twins. My job allowed me to be creative, but it was never enough and I always had in the back of my mind that ‘someday’ I would make my own art.

About six years ago I was thinking about what an older friend had once said to me. His career had been very technical and although he was a very talented artist, he never pursued it and I could tell that he regretted it. He told me not to let time get away from me without creating and finding my potential as an artist. I have never felt my age or really cared about it, but I was nearing 50 and his words of warning started to resonate with me, so that is when I committed to find a path to create.

Do I wish I had pursued sculpture earlier in life? It would be easy to beat myself up thinking about where I could be if I had started sooner. Maybe my work would be shown in galleries across the country or possibly the world, but I don’t want to waste my time thinking about what I cannot change. I have too many ideas that I need to get out of my head to worry about the past. I truly believe that not only do things happen for a reason, but they happen when they do for a reason. I am very happy with where I am right now. Just in the past year, in addition to a few good sales, I delivered a commissioned sculpture to a collector in Beverly Hills and another one of my sculptures is cruising the Mediterranean in an art collection on a cruise ship.

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.

I knew when I made the decision to create, I would eventually want to work in stone, but at the time I didn’t have the necessary tools or resources. After a few years of making sculptures in wood, brass and resin, a fellow sculptor told me about the Magic of Marble Festival in Sylacauga, Alabama. At this festival, sculptors gather under large outdoor tents and carve marble from a local quarry in front of the public attending the event. I was immediately hooked and fell
in love with marble. The sculpture that I began at that festival helped me achieve gallery representation and sold very quickly. Since that summer in 2022, I have carved ten marble sculptures and sold seven of them. Although I create using many different materials, I consider marble to be my preferred media.

In addition to carving stone, I have helped my clients solve design challenges using many other materials depending on the situation and any restrictions there may be. For example, my last two commissions began as marble sculptures, but after discussing the installation locations, we needed to change to a lighter weight material. In each of these situations, the dimensions and appearance were more important than the material. I was able to meet both of those requirements by creating the sculptures using resin and reducing the weight significantly.

There have been times when a client may be familiar with my abilities and we will work together to produce creative, yet very functional works of art. I created a set of eight laser cut and hand carved aluminum pulls for a coffee station cabinet in which the two main handles were 8 feet tall and 10” wide with two layers. I have fabricated refrigerator pulls that coordinated with the other cabinet pulls in the kitchen made in solid brass and stainless steel. I have made chandeliers and other lighting as well as a brass wrapped cooktop hood and a cantilevered steel staircase and handrail. None of these projects would have been possible if I had limited myself to only one medium.

When I was in school, there was a guy whose work I admired and he seemed to know how to use every tool and every material as well as make great sculptures. His mindset was that if you learn about all types of materials, techniques, tools and machinery, you would only be limited by your imagination as to what to create. I have been extremely fortunate in the jobs I have had in that I have gained very valuable knowledge as a craftsman and as a result, I am able to offer clients and collectors much more than a beautiful marble sculpture. I have worked in a wood carving shop where we duplicated wood carvings that were used in decorative home products and beautiful custom furniture. I learned how to make master patterns, rubber molds and how to cast various types of resins. My employment at a custom lighting manufacturer taught me metal fabrication in brass and copper as well as welded steel components. Every six months, we designed products that were introduced at the High Point and Dallas markets. I learned how to make lamp shades, how to buff brass and many other finishing techniques. Currently, I use AutoCAD to design ornamental iron work including stair rails, steel entry doors and drive gates. I work in a team to fabricate, finish and install these works in some of the most beautiful residences in the country.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

In Irving Stone’s biographical novel on Michelangelo’s life, he said “One should not become an artist because he can, but because he must”. When I read this, I felt a sort of relief, like it explained so much about the way I feel about art. For me, It is a craving that is not satisfied once a sculpture is complete. It is a need that will never be fully satisfied because there is always another idea to pursue. This inner need and feeling that I must create is fueled by a constant generation of ideas running through my mind.

Of course, I realize that I will only be able to tackle a small percentage of ideas in my lifetime, so I keep a list titled Sculpture Queue where I prioritize what I am working on. Most of the time my top three or four are something I am developing for a client or gallery, but the rest are ideas that have spent enough time coming together in my mind that I am able to put it into words and describe it in a physical way. Sometimes I am attracted to an idea so much and the curiosity of discovering the process and form is so strong that I will push my next project aside to do it. Other times I will pause the current sculpture in progress and make that idea immediately. This may sound counterintuitive to someone accustomed to a manufacturing process, but for me as a creative, doing this has a very positive effect. Whether the idea results in a successful sculpture or not, something will be learned. I will either know how to improve on it the next time or I will check the idea off as explored. I have learned to give in to the part of my nature that urges me to create and I am always thankful for the results.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

Being a sculptor can be rewarding in so many ways. There is a special honor that comes when someone appreciates your artwork enough to display it in their home and then having the opportunity to meet the collector and experience the results of a completed project is an incredible feeling.

The most rewarding aspect of being an artist is the actual act of creating. The work can be physically demanding, very loud and very dusty, but when I put on my safety gear and block out all the noise, I enter a world where I am completely focused on the object in front of me. Thinking through the emerging form and resolving the way each part interacts with another is good mental therapy.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.artworkarchive.com/profile/bill-usher/portfolio
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/billusher_sculpture/profilecard/?igsh=MWx2OTB6eWJzcHVv