Metal artists bring library sign to life

RANGELY I It was only a matter of time before metal artist Kyle Stewart’s creations became a family affair.
The 24-year-old, who works for family business Stewart Welding and whose metal sculptures can be seen in public spaces and private residences around Rangely, has taken on a full-fledged partner in his latest endeavor: his wife, Ashley.
The piece, a new sign for the Rangely Library, depicts silhouettes of children reading, along with three-dimensional book pages featuring a classic knight-dragon standoff and a whimsical scene reminiscent of the Jack and the Beanstalk fairy tale.
An avid drawer, Ashley had been interested in the creative aspect of her husband’s work since receiving his anniversary gift, a metal rose, on their first wedding anniversary.
The library project proved an opportune time for her to learn more about the creative process and how to work with the metal itself. Besides being largely responsible for the piece’s design, Ashley Stewart drew the patterns on the metal, cleaned off slag and sanded the forms.
“I love drawing and painting; I love art,” Ashley said. “But there’s always been somebody better who’s close to me. My brother’s better and Kyle’s better. I never thought I’d be able to showcase my skills, and this kind of gave me the chance.”
Over the last several years, library board members have discussed a new sign fronting Main Street but were unsure of how they wanted to carry out the project. This fall, library board member Vicki Douglas met with local artist Julia Davis, who suggested the Stewarts for the piece. Both Douglas and Davis had at least one of the pair in their classesl. Douglas was Kyle’s second-grade teacher, Davis the couple’s high school art teacher.
“Having had Kyle as a second-grader, I just love him,” Douglas said. “He was a really unique kid and he does amazing work. I’m so impressed with his talent. I had never met Ashley before, but I just fell in love with her, too.”
Besides demonstrating her artistic flair, Ashley had her own reasons for embracing the project.
“I’ve always loved the library and wanted to do something artistic for them,” she said. “And I hate the fact that libraries are being outsourced by electronic books. There’s nothing to take the place of real books.”
Using Wendy Roberts’ sculpture near the library’s entrance and Douglas’ ideas for inspiration, Ashley designed the “pop-up” book pages and children’s silhouettes around bold capital letters that march across the sculpture’s top. Douglas’ husband Kurt and fellow board member, Mike Morgan, dug dirt and laid cement with Grand Junction’s Desert Valley Builders creating the stucco backdrop.
“We had so many different ideas and people who helped,” Douglas said. “That’s what makes it fun. It wasn’t just one person’s idea. It was a lot of people working together to make it happen.”
After two months of planning, design and creation, the Stewarts presented the piece to the library last month, choosing to donate approximately two-thirds of the project’s overall costs. There are plans to landscape the space around the sign in the spring, to make the piece “pop” from the space much as its images spring from the metal.
“It went above and beyond our expectations,” Rangely Library Director Amorette Hawkins said.
For the Stewarts, it feels good to do this job well, less for the individual satisfaction of it than for the mutual collaboration it entailed.
“Kyle may have known this for a little while, but it took time for me to realize that this is a family calling, not just his calling,” Ashley said. “This is something we’ll get our kids into doing and helping with someday.”