Alone time can be lonely or even scary, but it’s also a time when we can truly know and understand ourselves (See what I mean? Scary!) Featured Valentine’s Market vendor Janet Rutkowski, a metal worker who will be selling small scale heart sculptures and candle holders on Sunday, told us about her love for being by herself in her studio, working with fire!
My work is so diverse, small scale, large scale, architectural and functional. I am inspired by everything around me. I love icons, symbols, ancient cultures, and traveling. But, I feel the one thing that inspires me the most is simply being alone in my studio. Welding is my inner fire. My studio is filled with scraps of steel in various shapes and sizes from jobs and commissions. A tiny shard of steel suddenly becomes a horse, a heart or an abstraction. A constant transformation of self and object.