By Steve Landwehr

Staff writer

IPSWICH — Mention sculpture, and most people probably conjure up images of Michelangelo's "Pieta" or Rodin's "The Thinker." Formed of marble or bronze, their beauty is timeless and unchanging.

Ipswich artist George Sherwood crafts pieces that are intentionally more fluid, always changing and only truly come to life when they ride the wind.

Sherwood, 51, is a kinetic sculptor who fashions stainless steel tubes and plates into deceptively simple, moving art forms meant to be displayed outdoors. Eight years ago, he gave up a job designing toys for Lego in Boston for work in a studio a stone's throw from his Argilla Road home.

"I basically changed a 31/2-hour commute to a 31/2-second one," Sherwood says.

It wasn't the drudgery of the drive that prompted a career change as much as it   was a desire to chase a dream.

"I got so passionately involved that I felt that more could be done with kinetic sculpture," he says.

Sherwood holds degrees in engineering and fine arts and became fascinated with moving sculptures in college. His inspirations were Alexander Calder, whose mobiles made him famous, and George Rickey, the first kinetic artist to mount his works outdoors.

"Rickey critiqued some of my early work," Sherwood says. "It was as good as a semester spent learning about kinetic sculpture."

A common theme running through much of his work is the spiral shape known as a helix. In some of his pieces, individual metal components are bent into helixes. In others, the moving parts outline the shape of a helix.

The most familiar example of a helix is the nautilus, and Sherwood has the cutaway half of a nautilus shell hanging on a wall in his studio.

"It's more beautiful than anything I could ever do," he says, tapping the shell with his finger.

Sherwood had formal training in the arts, but the creative path he chose required other skills. He's a self-taught machinist and welder, and his engineering background plays a critical role in his finished works.

"It's combining arts and science," he says.

His studio is divided into two shops. In the first, he tries out ideas on a small scale and sometimes uses a fan to see how his experiments move in a breeze.

Up a couple of steps is what he calls his dirty shop. Inside are numerous well-used but sturdy and reliable tools, including a big Bridgeport milling machine, a South Bend metal lathe and an assortment of welders.

There's also a Connecticut bending brake Sherwood uses to bend metal plates, a purchase his wife, Ruth, probably appreciated.

"Before I got it I used the door frames in the house to make bends," Sherwood says. "Finally, all the doors were sprung and I had to go to Plan B."

Backyard sculpture garden

Sherwood and his wife moved to Ipswich 20 years ago after buying what used to be a family summer home from Ruth's parents and winterizing it for year-round use. Sherwood's workshop was originally built as a small garage to house a Model T Ford.

Sherwood expanded it into a self-contained studio where he can take his projects from inception to finished product. It's what he calls a laboratory, but his test kitchen is his backyard.

"My studio is outdoors," he says. "I love the connection with the outdoors more than I do the indoors."

Scattered throughout the yard are numerous examples of his work, gleaming brightly even on an overcast day. He works almost exclusively in stainless steel because he likes the way it reflects the colors in the environment and changes as the pieces move with the wind.

He recently set up a piece he calls "Standing Wave" alongside the Ipswich Historical Society on South Main Street. It's a larger version of several smaller sculptures at his home.

The base of the sculpture is a piece of tubing that forms a near half-circle. From each end, two branches sweep up and out, with a metal leaf attached to each branch. The leaves are both sails that set the sculpture in motion and counterbalanced weights at each end of a pendulum.

The half-circle rotates on ball bearings, as do the two branches. Even in a gentle breeze, the whole sculpture appears to be wrapping around itself, the branches reminiscent of the sinuous arms of a Balinese dancer. Sherwood wasn't trying to recreate anything that exotic — just the simple motion of trees.

"It's deceptively simple, more air than anything else," he says of his creation.   "Outdoor natural forms and forces are my inspirations," he says.

Before the sculpture was moved to the Historical Society, it was set up outside the Hall-Haskell House next door. The house is both the town's Visitor Center and a gallery where local artists can showcase their work every summer. It's where Sherwood had his first exhibition in 1997 and where he made his first sale. This summer, Sherwood was a featured artist at the annual Woodstock, Vt., sculpture exhibit.

Sherwood would like to see more outdoor sculptures in the area and says he thinks it would even be good for the economy by drawing visitors. He'd particularly like to see sculptures in unexpected places.

"I think it's good when people just come upon something rather than being told they should go see it," Sherwood says.