Thom Wheeler
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Like their creator, Thom Wheeler's metal sculptures command attention. He works big with apparent ease and obvious grace, but even his smaller sculptures are larger-than-life in impact. Here's presence -- art and artist -- that immediately becomes Southwest legend.

"I was raised in Liberty County, Texas," he says with a near absence of drawl, "in a semi-rural environment -- horses, cows, chickens.

By the mid-70's, Wheeler had collected a number of skills including carpentry, metalworking, design. (In college, he majored in business.) He moved to Houston in 1975, and there he began meeting with architects and decorators to show the work he was doing in metals and stone. "It was during the boom years," he says. "The Houston sky was filled with cranes and skyscrapers in progress. Now, half of those buildings have something of mine inside or out."

Wheeler's just telling it like it is. From fireplace mantles and abstract wall pieces to free-standing stallions and an 8' x 42' brass, copper, steel, and cast aluminum "mural" of elephants (Harry's Kenya Restaurant and Bar, Houston). He's particularly gratified by his being commissioned to create the 1980 March of Dimes "trophy" sculptures to honor Dr. Jonas Salk and Madame Francoise Gilot. His success (big, of course) was and continues to be inevitable. "Working hard is the key. Of course, I love what I'm doing, so I don't really think of it as work."

He prefers non-porous metals -- brass, copper, aluminum, bronze -- and all of his sculptures evidence eminent craft and attention to detail. "Polish and texture, that's the thrill."

It's hard to peg this kind of imagination, though Wheeler likes "cowboy deco" to describe some of his art. Other sculpture he calls "wall jewelry".

Wheeler's lively "kachina doll" sculptures are good examples; the dazzle of brass and earthiness of turquoise make these totemic figures contemporary and timeless. Metal crosses, too, reflect an appreciation for a cultural expression of spirit and history.