Steve Swain, Barnstable
Shaping maritime wonders with steel
by rob conery
Step onto Steve Swain’s Centerville property. Walk past the skiff, the sloop, the 47 foot ketch and follow the path back, to the studio in the barn. Rock and roll music fills the air. A home-made barrel stove pumps wood heat. From the rafters hang fly rods, surfboards, old guitars. Bent to his work, Jedi blast shield protection covering his face, Steve Swain is creating.
Swain is a sculptor. From cold rolled steel he creates art in three dimensions. Most of the pieces depict fish, horseshoe crabs, and other sea life. “The horseshoe crabs and, lately, the starfish are probably the best sellers,” says Swain, 46, during a recent break at his studio.
Swain’s metal creations hang in many private collections and in bar and restaurant installations from Wellfleet’s Pearl restaurant, where Swain says he was able to treat the entire building as a combination of art and architecture to the Roo Bar in Plymouth, where he designed the interior and the light fixtures.
Swain says he has crossed entire hemispheres and the equator under sail. As captain and holder of a 100-ton master license, his yacht deliveries have taken him far afield. He is also a fisherman. “It is amusing to catch some strange, toothy, unidentified fish when you are used to seeing a striper come to the surface” says Swain of fishing halfway round the world..
He’s been sculpting and making steel art since the 1980’s, constantly refining his work. He spent some time in Key West–”I loaded up a little skiff on a trailer and hit the road,” says Swain–and had a studio down there for a couple of winters. But every angle of the compass seems to lead him back to the Cape.
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Last year, Swain opened his own gallery, The Frying Pan in Wellfleet. After a lifetime spent by the sea, the Frying Pan is the perfect venue for his nautical art. Perched on the cusp of Wellfleet Harbor, the structure is unique. “No two framing members are the same,” says Swain of the old oyster shack. An old ship’s mast is a ceiling joist. You can see rough-hewn, ancient cedar logs with the bark still on. Swain did most of the work himself. “One of the best parts of opening the gallery has been drop-in visits from local armchair historians,” says Swain, many of whom have memories of the building dating back to the early twentieth century. Some materials were floated over across the harbor from the remnants of the old whaling settlement on Billingsgate Island.
Sharing the Frying Pan space with Swain are two distinct painters, Wellfleet’s Paul Suggs, Mary-Jo McConnell of Marblehead and Bali, and Jen Morgan of Harwich (See a profile on Morgan, page 50). Swain’s work is diverse, with many variations on the sea theme. He makes fish–bluefish, tarpon and striped bass are favorites–that can be wall-mounted or rafter-hung. He makes bait ball light fixtures, weather vanes, candle holders and horseshoe crabs. A two-foot starfish goes for about a hundred dollars at the gallery.
The artist buys steel in bulk. His tool is a plasma torch, which mixes compressed air with an electric arc to concentrate 25,000 degrees of cutting power down to a fine point. The hissing torch is so point-specific that the steel around the cut cools to the touch quickly, and he can get on to the next step, cold forming the work by hand. Next he’ll buff smooth the edges and finish the piece. Depending on demand, about half of the pieces will be covered in clear enamel, preserving the shiny silver/gray of the steel, or left untreated, the pieces rust into appealing browns. This is particularly effective with the horseshoe crab wall mounts, as the rusted finish mimics the natural coloration of this sea creature that has crawled around Cape shorelines since antiquity. Swain’s pieces are simple, beautiful, and look almost preternaturally designed to hang in weathered contrast on the faded cedar shingle facade of a Cape or Island business or home.
The Frying Pan gallery is open from late May through the Wellfleet Oyster Fest in October. For information, go to www.fryingpangallery.com, or visit the gallery at 250 Commercial Street, Wellfleet. Steve Swain’s work can also be seen at www.swainer.com.
Rob Conery is a freelance writer, avid fisherman, and lover of good art.
