Tolley combines his blacksmithing, artistry and conceptual skills with the California Ornamental Steel Contractors’ license. Tolley builds custom indoor and outdoor sculptures, window awnings, garden gates and benches, and furniture.
For over 30 years he was a farrier and blacksmith, shoeing horses throughout Southern California. Wrestling thousands of pounds of horse is young men’s work. Tolley retired from horse-shoeing, working full-time as a sculptor and ornamental steel contractor.
Tolley’s travels took him from the world of traditional blacksmithing into modern metal fabrication techniques. Working as an artist in residence at the Tallac Historic site in South Lake Tahoe, California, for a few summers. Tolley revisited the roots of blacksmithing, working the bellows of a coke fire forge as he played and experimented with traditional shapes forged in the hot orange glow of the antique forge.
The past and the present live together in his work. As a metal sculptor, he has the unusual ability to work without drawn plans. Severe dyslexia shaped a work process unique to him. Watching him build ornate sculptures with nothing but a far-away glance now and then is a marvel.
California Ornamental Steel Contractor’s license: 1083027 C-23