Dimensional art
ATHOL – Silver streaks of lightening crack down from a clouded evening sky, bursting over a mountain range. A bear fishes in a stream, against a backdrop of mountains and pines.
An elk stands among tall trees next to a log cabin nestled in the woods.
Eagles, elk, pine trees, mountains and other familiar Northwest images abound in the metal sculptures created by artist Quint Norlander. But don’t think cold when you think of the steel he uses to create those scenes. Think warm. Imagine gold, bronze, deep browns, black – and silver and blue.
Not every color of the rainbow, but enough to amaze those who see his artwork.
“Everyone loves his work – the color he’s able to get especially when it’s shown under the proper light,” said Roxanne Everett, owner of Everett’s Gallery in the Spokane Valley Mall, which carries his work.
“They really attract light,” Norlander says of his artwork. “As you move around the room, they’ll change.”
Norlander has been creating his dimensional wall art for seven years. He worked as a welder for 18 years, then tired of it and switched to construction. At the time, he says he never would have dreamed of attending the kinds of art shows at which he now sells his work. But after injuring his back and recovering from surgery, he started playing with the tools of his former trade.
“Some of my first pieces were pretty comical,” he said, laughing.
“I started out playing around, then I started thinking, could I make a living doing this?”
He begins with sheet steel, which he hand cuts into shapes using a plasma machine. Then the pieces go through several stages of polishing, sanding, grinding and buffing. Next, he heats the pieces with an oxyacetylene torch.
“The torch is my paintbrush – that colors the steels,” he explains. He can get blue, bronze, gold, orange. White is created just by buffing and polishing. Once the pieces are colored, Norlander welds them together to create a tableau – elk in the woods, a bear in a stream, fish leaping in a river, a cabin tucked in the mountains.
Although he uses a template for the individual features, each finished scene is unique. “Each one is kind of an original,” Norlander says.
Diane and Ron Siverson have known Norlander for 25 years. Ron, a mechanical design engineer, worked with Norlander when he was a welder.
“Quint is the most talented and nicest guy you’ll ever meet through me,” Ron said.
Norlander is carried by Northwest Handmade in Sandpoint, the Everett Gallery in the Spokane Valley Mall and, during the summer, by Entree Gallery in Priest Lake. He also sells his work out of his home/shop in Athol and at art shows throughout the West, especially in Montana and Utah. The price ranges from about $100 for a small simple piece to about $4,000 for a large intricate scene.
Norlander’s inspiration comes from pictures or scenic vistas he happens upon.
His Northwest theme is especially popular here, Everett said, but added the gallery sells and ships his artwork to people all over the West. They’ve sold pieces to people as far away as Texas.
“What we’re seeing today is that art buyers are turning more toward dimensional wall art, unique accent pieces or focal points,” she said. Norlander’s work fits that bill.
“His pieces just go,” she said.