Open to interpretation

by

Bob Doster

Age: 70.

Resides in: Lancaster.

Claim to fame: Metal sculptor whose work ranges from whimsical collectibles to monumental public works. See: bobdoster.com.

Getting started: When Doster was 8, his father let him use a blow torch to cut metal. The first pieces he made were swords for himself and a friend.

Inspired by S.C: Doster’s steel sculptures of a Palmetto tree are available up to 14 feet tall.

Words to live by: “Any time you make something that wasn’t there before, it becomes art.”

USC or Clemson? Doster holds degrees in fine art from both schools.

___

A string of human figures, ascending toward heaven. A cluster of metal panels in geometric shapes, swaying as if brushed by a mountain breeze or an ocean wave. Lines that represent a body, moving in dance.

Such are the works that spring from the hands of metal artist Bob Doster, who cuts pieces from stainless and corten steel, then welds them together to form sculptures.

“I play with it in ways that I find pleasing,” says Doster, owner of Bob Doster’s Backstreet Studio in Lancaster. 

The themed sculptures he describes as “souls ascending” became a central part of his work after his adult son died in a 2001 car accident. Some of his most recent works, memorializing people killed in U.S. mass shootings, expanded on that theme. “The reaction I’ve gotten from this has humbled me,” he says. “People look at it and start crying. I didn’t expect that.”

The full range of his work is also on display at dozens of schools in North and South Carolina. Since 1975, he has worked with more than 150,000 students, many now parents and teachers. Some of those sculptures feature cutouts of student self-portraits, welded together in wheels, globes and other forms.

Doster knows that no two people will ever react to his work exactly the same, but that’s part of the artistic experience. 

“I like for people to find their own interpretation,” he says. “I learn a lot from what people see in my work.”