This art's a steel.

Most people's conception of art is fairly stereotyped: Painters work with brushes, while sculptors wield hammers and chisels. Obviously, they haven't met Barrett DeBusk. This Ft. Worth, Tex.-based sculptor's medium is cold forged steel, and the instruments he wields to shape it are welding tools. While this sounds oh so high-tech and might lead one to expect all sharp edges and massive pieces, DeBusk's works are not remotely along these lines--far from it, in fact.

Looking for words to describe these pieces, the ones that spring to mind are whimsical, satiric, kinetic, and, most of all, sheer fun! DeBusk hand bends the steel rods to form a wide assortment of characters and scenes, welds them together, and utilizes more rods to construct a frame, though many of his sculptures are free-form or freestanding. By welding on three-inch "legs" at a right angle to the work, with screw loops at the end of them to mount the piece on the wall, he produces a three-dimensional look, made even more interesting by the shadows the art casts behind the matte black-painted steel.

All of this is fascinating, but it is the...