It’s rare to find a US Army engineer who doesn’t pursue an engineering career after retirement. Well, Michael Vivona just did that; he took up what he was passionate about. And that’s metal sculpting. He describes himself on his Instagram page as “I’m an artist that welds, not the other way round!”
This 39-year-old did not plunge into sculpting immediately after leaving the army but waited till he bought his own house. This provided him with the space to pursue his craft. He has been into metal sculpting for the last five years.
Asked about his sculpting, Vivona told AwesomeByte, thus, “I’ve done commissions in the past, but I prefer to build what I want. I usually get a smaller figurine of what I want to build and scale it up from there.”
Vivona, who was raised in Long Island NY, USA, first honed his skills by using vintage tins and utensils and gradually reached his current amazing level. Today, he boasts of selling hundreds of sculptures to people around the globe.
Vivona’s work is not easy. He has to spend a major portion of his time in searching for the right metal pieces and parts. Then he has to think imaginatively of how to use them to make the object that he has thought of. Afterward, he spends hours hunched over his work table, working with his welding torch, metal cutters, and filers.
