We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Metal METcALfe a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Metal METcALfe, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s jump back to the first dollar you earned as a creative? What can you share with us about how it happened?

Our first dollars earned together came from the Wildflower Sculpture Exhibition (Hastings, New Zealand) in 2020. It is an exhibition where the commission is donated to our local Hospice for palliative care. A few months prior, we came up with the idea of collaborating the graphic stylised blooms of Katie’s aesthetic, with Amy’s metal fabrication skills. We whipped up 125 of our Full Bloom garden sculptures and filled three flower beds in the beautiful gardens where Wildflower was being held.

Opening night was a soggy event, but we noticed more and more people clutching our bright blooms as they walked around the gardens. Talking with customers they expressed the simple joy of a big, bright sunflower or the memory of a family member though one of our Forget-me-nots. By the end of the exhibition the flower beds had been picked clean!

We quickly realised we were onto something: creating pieces that people loved, donating a sizable amount to the local Hospice and finally…that we both loved working together on this little project.

Our first dollar earned gave us the confidence to more forward and explore the potential of our collaboration and the material that so many people responded to. We now know this was the conception of METcALfe (Metal Metcalfe). Metcalfe is our maiden name and luckily, it has the word metal in it. It was obviously meant to be!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

Let us introduce ourselves: we are sisters Katie and Amy who live and work in the beautiful Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand. METcALfe (Metal Metcalfe) is a creative business combining our skill sets. Having started as an experiment in October 2020 between the two of us; our colourful, stylised, playful artworks continue to be in demand from customers, stores and galleries alike.

Amy brings her product and metal fabrication skills to our practice, while Katie brings her pattern, colour and material expertise. The results are energetic, fun and accessible artworks and products. We are two creative, curly-haired sisters having great fun, designing, problem solving and fabricating metal sculptures and products. Play and experimentation are fundamental to our work!

The first lockdown in New Zealand (April 2020) enabled a period of time to reflect and reference back to our grass roots. As children we would run wild in the untamed landscape of our Scottish home (we are both from the UK originally). Bogs, brooks, forests and rambling stone walls were our playground. Posters of plants and birds were blu-tacked to our ceiling and walls in our bunk bed bedroom. Drawing and making around the kitchen table filled our days. Fast forward a few decades and we have combined the richness and variety found in ‘Mother Nature’s Garden’ and our childhood memories, with our repurposed steel drums, creating our own fun-loving, colour intense artworks.
Amy stumbled across our material of choice: repurposed 44-gallon steel drums, while on the lookout for a pre-finished, metal waste material. Spotting a selection of steel drums at a local honey company, Amy spoke with the foreman and was given three, sticky, blue drums to take away. We soon discovered that where we live in the Hawke’s Bay, there is an abundance of horticulture and food production factories and many of these factories produce these steel drums as a waste product or send them to the recyclers, some after only one use! We discovered all sorts of steel drums in the most incredible kaleidoscope of colours and we get so excited when we come across a new colour (such as bright pink!).

Having both worked within various design roles for global brands, we’ve observed large volumes of waste within manufacture. Now within our own design practice challenge, we incorporate and ultimately work to minimise waste and seek opportunities to add value to existing materials or resources. For the first part of our creative careers we were working in different hemispheres and in different sectors, now working collaboratively and combining our experiences in the same space enables us to address issues within our locality but with our global lens. Getting grubby, playing with materials and working through solutions is very much our happy space, therefore work very rarely feels like work!

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.

Being a creative person is showing your true self fully, you are your aesthetic. We put on show what is going on in our heads for anyone to see and comment on. Clearly on display are all the best and worst bits of ourselves, from the times of great inspiration and prolific creation to those times of stillness or sometimes procrastination. It is not something that can be turned off, you are always ‘on’ and ready to allow something, someone, or a thought to come to the front and be seen. This can sometimes have been hiding in plain sight or come from the most unexpected of places, people or situations!

A creative skill of observation is constantly being honed through all senses. Our craft evolves and matures with exposure to different experiences, materials and methods. We are actively seeking these moments out, knowing that the smallest thing can alter our path and lead to being the next source of inspiration for a body of work. It is exhilarating when you have a conversation with creatives from other disciplines! Pieces of a jumbled puzzle can start coming together, words become ideas, ideas become a vision and from there they can become a reality.

Surrounding oneself with other creatives is probably the most important lesson we have learnt. Another’s energy can rekindle a smoldering idea, and/or their encouragement can push you through those last stages of production or direct you back on course. As a creative duo we acknowledge the complimentary skill sets that we have both bought to METcALfe. We are able to support one another as on any given day either of our energy can vary. When we both have a day when we are open and energised, amazing things can and have happened!

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

We’re a very colourful duo and create very visually appealing artworks. Our story is simple and we have kept our message clear and concise on social media platforms. Our imagery is strong, professional and consistent. It is in our stories that we show the more candid day to day goings on within the workshop, travels and highlighting other artist and their works.

Although we know our story inside-out, sometimes you need an outsiders input to point out areas of interest, even those that we may have thought as not so interesting. We have enlisted the help of a social media word-smith (Lara Hornby), whom we have met with a number of times. These ‘coffee catch-ups’ are cost effective and inspirational for a new brand getting into the all consuming world of social media. Creating a cohesive plan of action to clearly convey our story and brand with oodles of our personality has been invaluable to us in these fledgling years.

Katie has diarsied specific dates, events and movements that align with us and our brand. We therefore have a selection of deadlines to work to where we create works and content that may be released on a particular date to celebrate or commemorate that day, such as World Bee Day.

Contact Info:

• Website: metalmetcalfe.com
• Instagram: @metalmetcalfe
• Facebook: facebook.com/metalmetcalfe

Image Credits
Charlotte Anderson Photography