“It’ll cut through sheet steel like a birthday cake,” says John Weeks, picking up his “plasma cutter,” one of his many metal-working tools, with both hands. He puts the end of its pistollike barrel against a piece of metal thick enough to be from a car body, and pulls the trigger. A piece of metal the size of a silver dollar falls out.
Weeks and his two fellow artists, Jan Benes and Max Trefonides, are sculptors at heart. Trefonides and Benes make a distinction between their art and their furniture. Weeks does not. In fact, it would be difficult to do so.
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He started studying marine biology at the University of North Carolina in 1982, but quickly switched to art and soon was concentrating on sculpture. After three years he transferred to the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, where he finished his BFA. He says he naturally gravitated toward metal. “I love metal–live for metal. I have no use for wood. I know what metal does when welded, what temperature it melts at, what metals will give what curves.”
Weeks has supported himself with his “art furniture” for the past year. Before that he supplemented his income with what he calls “fabrications,” which involved working with interior designers, architects, or other private contractors who wanted their designs realized in metal.
