Sculptures
Loren Senge’s unique style of metal sculpture is remarkable in many ways. The beauty of the form, the intricate details and the vibrant colors, which shimmer and change depending upon which angle you view it from and how the light is hitting it. It reflects nature beautifully.
As observed by Barry Hochsprung...

“Just like Mother Nature, light changes. During the day, you get a set of colors, and then another set of colors, and when it's dark, you have another.”

Each series of sculpture has technical aspects to its creation, as well as it own story of what inspired Loren to work with that subject matter. The following are descriptions of her relationship with each series. Enjoy!

Crab Sculptures
One day her friend Rodger said, “Do you think you could make a sculpture of one of these?” He held up a crab he had just pulled out of the crab trap. Loren thought it would be an interesting challenge to try. He froze it in the bottom of a bucket for Loren to use as a model. Loren watches crabs in crab tanks in markets, or at the beach as they crawl to keep up with the receding tide and escape the hungry beaks of seagulls. She paddles in shallow waters, where crabs sit in the eel grasses. She sees them huddled under a thin layer of sand, slight lumps on the ocean floor when she dives in SCUBA gear. Specifically forming itself to clean up debris and fit into crevasses, this specialized creature side slides, shyly, until cornered. Then its fierce pinchers rise quickly in self-defense. Loren now prefers sculpting metal crabs than eating them. She is having fun studying and recreating their shapes, honoring the artistic form they have: wearing their skeleton as a suit of armor that folds up to look like a rock.

The crab shapes are cut from plate steel, usually 3/16” thick, by hand with a plasma cutter, and then are forged to create the 3 dimensions. The pieces are then ground and welded in to the crab sculpture's body, with weld added to complete the form. More grinding and shining makes them ready to color. After coloring with a torch, they are powdercoated. Crab sculptures can be plated with nickel or copper, or allowed to develop a rust patina.

Heron Sculptures
The Heron is an awkward bird, unless standing on one leg. It stands patiently curled in, as a tight spring, hunting in shallow water for the unassuming fish or frog that happens to come along. Herons have admirable grace and quickness in this position. They are brilliantly shaped, for what they do. They squawk with agitation when disturbed by a close intruder, and take off, tilting, gangly. They fly with legs too long to tuck into an aerodynamic position, but perhaps like the tail of a kite, the dangling legs offer stability to the huge wingspan. Mostly aloof and alone, the heron breaks the desolate gray landscape with its pointy presence.

Hand crafted from a curved piece of 3/16” steel plate, gouged to form the flora and fauna of its habitat, these beautiful and unique heron sculptures are polished to a high silver luster and then colored with the flaming tip of a torch. Brilliant blues, violet, copper, and subtle golden light contrast with the deeply ground silver. The grinding marks remain, giving rich depth to the surface that allows the light to catch different facets and move across the surface with the viewer. Strong halogen lighting releases the deep colors stored in these one-of-a-kind pieces.

Wave Sculptures
These frozen energy forms represent the power that withdraws and reforms as it gathers information and sends its messages wrapping the globe with information and potential energy. In Loren’s shop, there is massive energy, electrically distributed to various tools for cutting, grinding, shaping, heating, and welding. Waves drive this matrix of power, hardly harnessed to do our bidding. Wave power is readily available, playful, extraordinarily unique and filled with information. How conscious is nature? How conscious are we of it? Drawn in her youth to the elegance of the ocean wave breaking at the beach, Loren watched them for hours. She rode them on her surfboard, loved playing in them and with them. Foam spray, celebration, laughter, wind blown splashes and slaps, a rugged lover, filling her head and wetsuit with sand, and salt splashes, drying in white crystal kisses on her skin.

Wave sculptures are made from 3 layers of 3/16” flat plate steel, plasma cut and bolted together. They are textured and polished and then heat colored with a torch and clear coated with a powdercoating. Please visit “Studio” in the photo section of this website to see Loren performing the steps of creating a colorful metal wave sculpture (click Home at the top or bottom of this page, then Studio).

Tree Sculptures
Loren’s first work in metal was a metal tree sculpture. She watched trees as she walked to the art studio each day, as their branches and trunks blew in the wind, as they stood with branches upon branches upon a trunk, upon the ground, growing from roots unseen: a living antenna feeding the earth with higher dimensions of energy gleaned from light bent intention. Trees, always thrusting upward, toward the light, waving in the currents of wind, reading the voices from around the world of other trees passing messages in whispers, dreams of summer in winter, and endless habitat for microscopic and macroscopic fauna.

Trees are forged from heavy mild steel bars. They can be designed to fit various space requirements. They can be finished with heat-induced color or left bright silver and powdercoated or sealed with beeswax. Please visit “Studio” in the photo section of this website to see Loren performing the steps of creating a tree sculpture (click Home at the top or bottom of this page, then Studio).

Bonsai Sculptures
A beautiful and practical tree art sculpture. Useful to hang earrings, bracelets, rings. Decorate with the seasons or spotlight in a showcase to bring out the highlights in these unique steel sculptures. Steel trees of any size can be designed to fit the space available.

Arctic Tern Sculptures
Aerial angles drawing, dipping, sweeping on currents, like musical notes singing frequencies on an endless staff of song. Loren’s friend Rodger shot some unique photos of arctic terns while working in the Alaskan waters of Prince William Sound. He caught these elegant, black-capped birds carving the wind. The beautiful flight of tern forms inspired the creation of Loren’s one-of-a-kind flocks in motion. Playful, aerobatic, diving vectors, these birds draw the very shape of the wind currents they ride.

Loren’s beautiful handcrafted combinations of individual terns joined in a flock of flight, are gently colored with the torch flame, and mount easily on any wall. Halogen lights mounted above the sculpture bring out delicious color and fabulous shadow, giving depth and brilliance to this art. Intricate details are plasma cut from 3/16” curved plate steel and painstakingly grinded and polished.

Eagle Sculptures
“Can you build an eagle of steel? Will you build it striking a salmon jumping from the other pillar in the driveway entrance?” This was a complex assignment. Loren had studied the shape and flight positions of birds, seagulls, crows, ravens, vultures, and eagles. But to build one out of steel that would please the requirements of a client seeking a solid bronze full size 3 dimensional eagle and salmon for his front entrance pillars? This was to become one of Loren’s more challenging and rewarding metal sculpting projects.

The closed sculpture of solid form that mimics only the shape did not fit Loren’s sense of design. The open matrix of a steel grid armature gives lift, light, and flight, lending life itself to the steel. Piece by piece, the form of this eagle revealed itself.

Loren studied pictures of beautiful diving eagles, drawings of eagle and bird skeletal systems, feather technology. And then she worked, trusting each direction as received. At first she tried to figure out how each direction would affect the final outcome. But the concept of this sculpture was too great to conceive of each step. Contemplation, followed by a tiny step, over and over again, day after day, with periods of doubt, and resignation to take the tiny steps, yielded this sculpture. Loren loves to engage the unknown, to make it known. This eagle is a welded memory of the struggle with self and the defiance of fear. The client was pleased with the open form result. It flies as a stealth figure through the woods.

This beautiful, hand formed piece has a stainless steel tail and head, which contrasts with the rust patina on its cold rolled steel body. A steel mesh gives a feathery density to the tail and wings. The talons are hand forged of mild steel.

Wire Salmon Sculptures
Complementing the Eagle Sculpture, but also available separately is the Wire Salmon Sculpture. Salmon is such a rich fish to eat, to catch, and to see thundering up a river in huge masses. A kayak fisher caught one and was towed around an extensive bed of kelp for 20 minutes before seeing the huge king salmon at the surface by her boat. "If I could just see one", she had thought. And so she did just see it as it broke the line, realized it was free, and lazily swam down and away, a beautiful, stunning, huge fish.

Wire salmon sculpture’s open form and framework; support the leaping movement of the king salmon. An imaginative flow of energy, uniquely handcrafted of 1/4”stainless steel rod. This extremely unique piece makes a perfect sculpture for indoors or outdoors.

Salmon Bracket Sculptures
Brilliant flashing silver smiles, leaping from the water’s still surface to catch the sun, and perhaps lose the interest of an underwater predator.
Salmon Sculpture brackets can be made to specifications to hold up a garden window, as decorative corner pieces on decks, porches, and fence arbors, or as post and beam fasteners. These unique brackets add strength and character, as well as a fine art touch to any building project.

Crow Bench Sculptures
The crow is a wise bird, making tools, working in groups to accomplish goals for the good of the flock, a social creature, with a quick wit and a playful disposition. Watching for hours, as ravens play on the updrafts over a cliff, as aerial acrobats at sunset, kept Loren out past dark during desert hikes, island kayak trips, and mountain hikes.

Cut from I-beams, the crow bench sculpture makes an extraordinary addition to a yard or garden, or is absolutely exquisite as an indoor seat. The seat is crafted from beech wood slats finished with 3 coats of clear marine exterior coating. Indoors or outdoors, these beautiful benches are each unique, one of a kind pieces, and can be built to specified lengths to suit you. Other forms can be requested and cut from the I-beams.

Custom Sculptures
Loren's creative ability extends far beyond what she has already achieved. If you would like a metal sculpture that you don't see here, please call Loren to discuss the possibility of creating your custom work of art. (360) 676-0530