He was supposed to load people for free on certain afternoons, but he got accustomed to my scrap-metal tip and was happy to hook me up with a scoop or two of fresh manure. My poor old truck would ride low with a load of metal to Siler City, and return riding low with soil amendment.
I would occasionally do the trip with my daughters, in which each of us would guess the weight of the outgoing load. The winner would pocket the money, which generally meant we came home with milkshakes instead of manure.
But after years of hauling from the woods to the scrap yard, I started seeing things in the metal. I would fish out certain pieces, drill holes in them with my electric drill, and bolt them together. Tami would come home from work, and I would say “Look, honey, there’s a mosquito in the front yard.”
She would look at the “sculpture,” which had tin cans for eyes, and she would look at me with a worried expression. Using a hand-held hacksaw, and nuts and bolts, I made caterpillars, and a giant Canada goose, and flowers for the yard.
Friends and family started noticing when they came to visit, and they occasionally asked to purchase a piece. “Mother’s day is coming up, and my Mom would like that,” Phifer said. At the time I was running around Research Triangle Park each day trying to sell software for a living, and I had no desire to sell my art. Which made me politely decline.
That only increased demand.
My journey into art was triggered in large part by a trip to Sweden. Tami and I awoke one morning in Hanover, Germany, at the end of a grueling technology trade show, and boarded a train for Sweden.
It was Easter, and though Sweden is not a religious country, the place was largely closed. The service was horrible, the weather was drab, and my fantasies about Sweden as the model progressive country were abruptly dashed. On top of my broken expectations, Tami and I decided that it would probably be best if we split the sheets on our return.
She wanted kids. I already had kids. And we pretty much agreed that it would be best if we went our separate ways.
We were in Uppsala, visiting a church renowned for its Viking runes, and as we walked through the cold drizzle, thoroughly disheartened, we encountered a garden-sized chess set made of wood set in a private glen in a public park.
It was a miraculous affair. We played a game. It was fun.
I thought of my scrap metal piles at home, and envisioned a life-sized set made from scrap. For some reason, it occurred to me that if we could have a giant-sized chess set at home, having more children with Tami wouldn’t be that bad.
I built my big board, and Zafer arrived, and our love of corporate life evaporated.
Tami went back to work for one week, cried her eyes out, and traded in her jet-set job for motherhood. She decided to become an art broker, which she intended to do with a kid on her hip, from her headquarters in the corner of our living room. And she kicked off her new business by selling a life-sized chess set to Laura over at Reba and Roses, which was a renowned landscaping and garden art center.
With an “order” in hand, I needed to get busy, and I quickly realized that I had no way to do real welding. I collected all the design elements for the first set, and had them welded together by John Amero over at Amero Metal Design. He gave me a lesson in how to operate my oxy-fuel rig, and then left me to my own devices.
I landed a one-man exhibition at the Carrboro Art Center, called Junkyard Frog, for which I brazed my brains out.
I collected some interesting scrap metal from an abandoned mill and made a piece which I called “Going to Town.” It was a family on a buckboard. Mom, Dad, daughter, son, dog, pulled by horse. When braising cast iron the trick is to use nickel rods and to sand-cool the joints. I put a tractor tire in place at Summer Shop, and filled it with sand. I would complete a joint, and immerse it in the sand, let it cool, and pull it out for the next one. And I did this a hundred times to fabricate Going to Town.
When Going to Town showed up in the Carrboro Arts Center, I paid tribute to Andreas Drenters and Pioneer Family. Its scale was tiny compared to his. But his influence was evident. The show was selected as one of the top ten exhibitions in the Triangle for 1998.
It wasn’t long before I realized that if I was going to make a go of metal sculpture, I would need to be indoors, and I would need better electricity, and I would need to learn how to actually weld.
That combination of ideas put me on the real estate hunt. Anyone headed out of our house has a twisted half-mile drive to the end of the lane. When they reach the Pittsboro-Moncure Road upon which we live, they will find themselves about equidistant between the two places. Take a left and you are headed for Moncure. Take a right and you are Pittsboro bound.
The day I decided to search for a place to set up shop I took a left.
The unincorporated village of Moncure has a handful of churches, a post office, the Jordan Dam Mini Mart, an elementary school, a bank, a post office, and Ray’s General Merchandise — which is a Citgo station with a butcher shop and about anything else someone might need.
My desire was to not only open a sculpture business, but also to open an “arts incubator,” where other artists would rent space, come into their own, and settle in Moncure. I saw the Village of Moncure as the next Soho. Real Estate was cheap, places were abandoned, and I figured it would be easy to effect an “artistic renaissance” in the community.
The site I chose was a single story white building on Old US 1, about the middle of town. Elbert had won it in a poker game, and his wife Claudia ran a beauty salon in one of its rooms.
I needed some cash to launch the project, so I headed down into the hollow where Wilbur and Margaret lived. Margaret was a county commissioner at the time, and was an emissary from the black community. Her brother Wilbur is our county’s greatest salesman. Whether it is pumpkins, or firewood, or collard greens, or whatever, he has been selling products off the back of his truck for generations, and is undoubtedly one of the wealthiest individuals in Moncure.
I explained my vision to them. They were to donate money to the Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill, and the Botanical Garden was to buy one of my giant chess sets. I was to take the money, and transform Elbert and Claudia’s place into Moncure Chessworks, which would then incubate studio artists, introduce the community to chess, teach chess to children, and otherwise transform the community.
They liked the idea. And they were in.
With an order in hand, I rented the place and went to work. A dear friend from college, Jim, jumped in and helped with the transformation of the building.
We moved in together as artistic roommates, intent on making our way as studio artists.
The building had enjoyed a long and varied life, but the most famous of its incarnations was that of juke joint. In a village where there was no such thing as liquor by the drink, Elbert managed to create a thriving speak easy, with live bands, a VIP lounge, and a reputation which drew black folks from miles around.
We turned the stage into a spray booth, rigged up compressed air, and I set up a metal working shop where the VIP room once stood.
I hosted chess tournaments, at one point bringing in Emory Tate, who at the time was slotted to become the first African American grand master chess player. I offered chess lessons. And with the help of the masonry class from Northwood High School, I built a twenty-four square foot solid concrete chess board in the side yard.
As the years wore on Elsie painted a mural on the side wall, and Mike built an outdoor grinding station and scrap yard. Jim moved a kiln in, and we started having openings that would draw a crowd. Kerry moved into one corner and worked in stained glass. The place began to pulse, and whenever I landed big commissions, whether they were chess sets, or otherwise, I would take on help. Stayce and Stacey and Heather