Page 6 - HIWT Summer 2018 World of Welding

HIWT Graduate goes on to be an Award Winning American Sculptor

By: Melinda Jeffery and Peter Shelton

Peter Shelton has a love for all descendants lived on parts what was once my great grandfather
things art. He has a Bachelor and Charles McCulloughs dairy farm. In fact, the Hobart Urban Nature
Masters degree in Fine Arts and is Preserve and sculpture park was created on one of his pastures.
a graduate from the Hobart School I originally learned to weld in my sculpture and theater design classes
of Welding Technology in 1974. at Pomona College in Claremont, CA but was always determined to
His love for art has led him all over attend the full certifcation course program at the Hobart Institute
the world displaying his various when I had a chance. It seemed like destiny. I graduated with full
sculptures. Inspired by the many certifcations in all processes in the spring of 1974.
facets of interest that Shelton
has, his art came out of aortas Did you always do art or did you work as a welder
and hearts and steam headers and after you left here?
pressure tanks. In an attempt to Actually, I didnt think about using welding for my art until several
understand the man behind the art, Artist headshot provided by years later. I thought it might be a good way to support myself as
I asked him a series of questions Harriet Anstruther an artist. I immediately worked for my Studebaker cousins, Hobart
and was very impressed with his Manufacturing assembling stainless steel meat saws among other
answers. You will be too.
things, and later as a pipe welder at Dow Chemical in Midland,
What made you decide to get into welding? Michigan.
Born in Troy, Ohio. my relatives were the Telfords and McCulloughs, What is your inspiration for your art?
two of the founding families of the City of Troy. Alexander Initially, I was interested in a kind of sculpture that grew out of
McCullough and Alexander Telford, an American Revolution veteran, my industrial welding experience and my interest in making a kind
are both buried in Troys Rose Hill Cemetery. My Scottish relative of nearly architectural sculpture that one could literally enter. As
Thomas Telford (1757-1834) was a famous engineer credited with a onetime premed, anthropology and theater student, I wanted to
the frst all iron suspension bridges such as the Menai Straights make a work that could be physically engaged where its meaning
Bridge to Wales. Curiously, the origin of the name Telford comes was experienced as much in our bodies as our brains. There is a
from the Old French root words tailleor, as in tailor, and fer, as in liberal blend of anatomy, and architecture and industrial forms in my
iron. They were probably armor makers.
work. My art came out of aortas and hearts and steam headers and
I was the kind of kid who was constantly building things. I grew up pressure tanks.
in Arizona because my father David S. Shelton, a company infantry
commander, suffered a sniper wound to the head in the Battle of What do you feel is your greatest achievement in
the Bulge in Belgium in December of 1944. Because he remained the welding realm?
paralyzed on his right side, we had to leave the ice and cold Studying in art school was critical to learning about what kind
weather of Ohio. of work I wanted to make and the history of such making but my
But I worked summers out on Route 202 on the way to Dayton for welding school experience gave me a discipline to help me turn my
my Studebaker cousins who created Process Equipment Company ideas and visions into reality. I have been able to apply that discipline
and LaserPlane Corporation. Descendants of the three Studebaker to many other material processes. As in learning a foreign language,
blacksmith brothers who came to this country in 1736 from once you learn one, it is easier to learn another.
Solingen, Germany, my Route 202 cousins were brilliant inventors,
machinists and fabricators. Another branch of this family made Do you still do weld art or just casting pieces?
wagons for the transcontinental migration in the 19th century and I still regularly weld to make hangers and armatures for my work.
later Studebaker cars. While many would use wood to make a fxture, jig or stand, I use
So, what I do runs long on both sides of my family. metal. But much of the net result of my sculpture these days is often
cast metals or fabricated composite materials instead of a weldment.
My Grandparents Dr. George E. McCullough and Jesse McCullough Critically though, what I learned about how to approach the making
lived on the corner of Plum and Franklin Street in Troy. Dr. of my work is a direct result of my time at Hobart Institute and the
McCullough founded the frst hospital in Troy on Plum Street industrial experience that followed.
next to his house. My grandparents lived across the street from
E.A. and Martha Hobart. As a little girl, my mother once watched Anything else you would like to be said about you
their house burn down and be rebuilt and I would swim with my and/or your art?
brothers in their exotic indoor swimming pool. Other Hobart brother I have a funny anecdote about being at the Institute. Sometimes, over

2018 SUMMER ISSUE - 6 - www.welding.org