TRENTON, Ga. — A thousand-pound Tyrannosaurus rex stalks the north side of Trenton, baring its fangs at motorists whizzing past Charles McFarland’s business.
The T. rex is just one of the metallic creations populating the property, all creatures springing from the Falling Water, Tenn., native’s hands and mind.
“It’s a dream that I’ve always wanted to do,” Mr. McFarland said, gazing at photos of his work on his office wall.
He said he learned to weld at 16 and was working with metal full time in the construction industry by 20. Sidelined by illness about 10 years ago, he said he decided on a more artistic pursuit.
The creatures standing vigil around his U.S. Highway 11 business, Art Sculptures by Charles, earn him a living and feed his passion to create.
Mr. McFarland, 57, said he recently moved from Hamilton County to Dade County, Ga., to have a more centralized location from which to hit the art show circuit.
He said he sculpts mostly in steel, stainless steel, copper and aluminum, and his work is scattered across the region in public and private displays.
One significant piece is part of the Children’s Holocaust Memorial at Whitwell Middle School in Marion County, Tenn. Mr. McFarland built a 10-foot-tall, 5-foot-wide steel pyramid to hold 29 million paper clips sent to the school’s eighth-grade class for its Paper Clips project that started in 1998. He later built gates for the memorial after it was moved to Whitwell’s new middle school.
Another of Mr. McFarland’s dinosaurs greets students at Normal Park Museum Magnet Lower School in Chattanooga, he said. That sculpture is displayed on the front lawn.
What gives him the most satisfaction, he said, is the appreciation others show for his giant metal insects and dinosaurs.
He remembers a time a few years ago when he loaded up a sculpture and hauled it around Hixson.
TO LEARN MORETo learn more about Art Sculptures by Charles, go to www.artsculpturesbycharles.com or call 706-657-7152.
“I pulled it around a little bit, but it kind of embarrassed me and I took it back home. I thought, ‘I must be crazy,'” he laughed. “But then I went down to Northgate and pulled in front of Chuck E. Cheese’s, and they all quit playing the games and they all came to the window.”
After a couple of elderly ladies gave him a thumbs-up as he passed, “I figured I was on to something,” he said.
Richard McKaig, a longtime friend, said he always knew Mr. McFarland had a strong work ethic, but the switch to sculpture was a “shock.”
Mr. McKaig said he’s known Mr. McFarland more than 25 years and never has gone more than a couple of weeks without talking to him.
“But I never knew he could draw flies, much less that he could be an artist,” Mr. McKaig said. “If you look at his stuff, you know he’s amazing.”
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