About the Artist

BY Joseph Panico

Originally from Philadelphia P.A. moving to Pompano Beach, Florida in 1987, after spending two years in Frankfurt, Germany where I served in the U.S. Army, Air Defense Artillery division. While in the service I had the opportunity to travel Europe seeing beautiful architecture and public art spaces especially in Paris and Italy. The presence of public art and how people are drawn to it inspired me. My interest in welding and metal art began at an early age by my friends’ father who was a metal artist/welder. Instead of going to a regular high school I chose to go to vocational school for four years where I studied: welding, physics, design, metallurgy, and metal forming. After high school I worked for several yacht manufacturers in south Florida not doing metal art but welding - fitting aluminum, steel, and stainless steel on yachts and ships. In 1994 I was forced to take a break from metal fabrication due to an injury so I entering the financial industry, lending which would end abruptly due to the financial crisis in 2008.

Re-entering the metal industry in 2009 I focused on custom stainless-steel fabrication and public art projects. Raleigh N.C. was in a growth stage at that time so I decided that is where I should start. In Raleigh I had the opportunity to learn from several metal artists working on sculptors and public art projects. I took in every opinion and idea on metal sculpting, learning the tricks and how simple it was not needing a lot of machinery to make metal art sculptures. My focus is to create inspiring custom metal work that inspires people, drawing them closer to making that connection to their inner creativity.