Gypsy

By Jeff Best

Claire, MI

Created in 2021

Metal wire

$13,500

Being a self-taught artist from Clare, MI, my journey into the art world has been an adventure of passion and purpose since an early age. I have been blessed with many extraordinary opportunities because of my pursuit of my love of the arts. Working with wire as a medium will stretch one’s imagination. I experience my artist flow when I allow my intuition to drive my creative process. I explore the positive and negative space, the composition and three-dimensional process resulting in something unique that will draw even the most passive observer for a closer study. My technique using wire has evolved. Once I understood how to use wire as a vascular framework instead of a space filler, my creations started to breathe. I found a pulse that gave expression and movement that leaped forth from each creation that results in a warmer soul for those in observance. I've been a full-time, commissioned artist since 2016. Devil’s Rope Studio currently has 27 permanent sculptures in 6 different states and 8 different cities as well as hundreds of sculptures in private collections throughout the U.S.

This sculpture is named "Gypsy", representing the Gypsy Vanner horse breed.  Created out of barbed and barb-less fencing wire, Gypsy will draw one in and surprise the onlooker once they realize the medium is, the typically dreaded, barbed-wire fencing wire.  Gypsy Vanners are an elegant, majestic breed of domestic horse from the islands Great Britain and Ireland.  It is particularly associated with Irish Travellers and English Romanichal Travellers of Ireland and Great Britain.  There is approximately one mile of wire used in this sculpture.  The armature is made of welded black pipe with the only other welded material is that of his hooves and where I affix the mane and tail to the armature.  Everything else is hand-form and tied together with short pieces of wire from my needle-nose pliers.