My full metal racket

Andrew Mathieson
A NURSE with a hint of artistic flair first walks into a scrap metal yard.
She cautiously looks around for a moment and starts to sift through the piles of offcuts.
Something grabs her eye and she puts it aside.
The scouring raises the eyebrows of a few yard workers. The burly men in greasy overalls give a grunt or two.
“You right, love?” one yells.
But she doesn’t need a hand; there are no right or wrong decisions at the bottom of the heap for metal sculptor Leonie Amerena.
“It’s interesting going out there now because the guys are quite used to me,” Leonie remarks.
“They even look for stuff for me and keep something that may be of interest.”
Still, an ambitious Leonie can be picky like a dodgy furniture removalist.
If she can’t lift it, it stays there.
The best metal has to be “tortured and twisted” from its original form, she reckons.
Cutting, twisting, bending, warping is all part of the appeal.
“I love using metal which is pretty heavy to create something that has a lightness to it, that has movement in it and that can almost stand on one tiny corner of itself,” Leonie declares.
The Newtown mother-of-two caught the sculpting bug nearly two decades ago in the US while working as a practice nurse.
On her return Leonie attended Geelong Fine Arts School, where she was introduced to the wonders of recycled metals – and also to the welding that’s necessary for the art form.
“I don’t say I’m a particularly good welder,” she grins.
“Well, welders wouldn’t think I’m a good welder. It’s just a means to an end. Let’s just say I wouldn’t be able to get my ticket.”
Somebody else was persuaded to weld her first couple of pieces together but eventually Leonie bit the bullet during a trade course at Gordon Institute of TAFE to perfect her art.
And perfect it she has.
Her creations are all about shapes and “negative spaces” but the focal point is showing off the feminine form.
The figures can be slender but still empowering.
“But I really don’t know what the end product will be when I start it,” she admits.
“Often, if I’m not happy I’ll break it all up again and re-establish it for another piece.
“I generally don’t do any sketches of it, either.”
Some of the finished works still adorn her dining room, garden and even the garage, which is also her workshop. There are pieces small enough to sit up on coffee tables but some stand up to six-foot high and tower over the artist.
Leonie’s lost count how many pieces she has laboured over – let alone sold.
“I’ve never added it up but it would probably be several hundred,” she guesses.
“Would it? That sounds a huge amount.
“Well, I’ve probably been doing it now for eight years.”
She rolls her eyes, considers the numbers and adds: “I’m lucky to do a couple a month now.”
Most of the crashing metal sculptures sell at art gallery shows but also through word of mouth.
The average price is a few hundred dollars but some have fetched a couple of thousand at auction.
Those figures sit uncomfortably with Leonie.
“In the art world, sculptures are one of the last things people want to buy,” she observes.
“They’d much prefer to put something up on their wall like paintings.
“You have to be very good or very, very lucky.”