Julia Peerson Carpenter was like any other child growing up, except for one thing. She was excited to do classroom projects. She lived in the details and took it to a different level than most.
“I can’t remember a time when I was not involved in some form of art. The need to be an artist has always been with me. As a kid I somehow understood the plight of an artist, and I still wanted it,” she said.
Now Carpenter lives her dream as an accomplished sculptor whose signature collection combines her love of welding with the softer side of fashion.
Her Metalwear collection was inspired by a self-portrait assignment when she was a student at the University of Montevallo. She envisioned a life-size metal dress that would illustrate a balance between strength and elegance by utilizing rigid, rusted material. Fabric patterns are painted onto the sheet metal before it is cut, shaped and welded. She saves the steel scraps from the metalwear to use for jewelry designs.
“I painted sheet steel for fabric. In the end it had burn marks everywhere that I welded. I scratched and chipped paint where I hammered. I embraced this entire rugged process,” she said. “Since the first dress I have focused more on color, pattern and design. They all still hold my original purpose: to represent the strength and elegance that I want to maintain within myself and that I can see so clearly in other people…and in other art.”
Her most treasured dress in the 17-dress collection is called the Tree Top Lollipop, which was a truly wearable metal dress that required help from her husband. The name is from the lollipop-like pattern and because she said it was that unreachable thing in the treetops for such a long time.
She has a request from her youngest daughter, Amelia, for a matching blue dress.
“From the start I wanted to be able to put these dresses on, but they were all constructed on the original dress form, which is not accurate to my shape. For the 13th dress, we made a true to size dress form with duct tape and filled it with sand. I used the sandbag ‘Julia’ to build the top part of the dress down to the waist. Then my husband, Austin, helped me into it and took measurements.We built it piece by piece this way. I have only worn it over work clothes so far,” she said.
So far, Carpenter has fabricated 17 dresses from recycled materials, showing them across Alabama and as far away as Seattle. One dress can be seen at Blue Phrog Gallery in Montevallo. Carpenter has been making jewelry from aluminum roofing, teaching a Creative Welding class at Sloss Furnaces and wrapped up the Tower of Flowers project for Birmingham Southern College’s Southern Environmental Center with Montevallo graduate Jennifer Wallace. The Tower of Flowers stands more than nine feet and is placed in the North Birmingham EcoScape.
Carpenter has exhibited her metalwear at many venues in the region, including Bare Hands, Magic City Art Connection, the Kentuck Art Center, and Chattanooga's River Gallery.
“I can’t remember a time when I was not involved in some form of art. The need to be an artist has always been with me. As a kid I somehow understood the plight of an artist, and I still wanted it,” she said.
Now Carpenter lives her dream as an accomplished sculptor whose signature collection combines her love of welding with the softer side of fashion.
Her Metalwear collection was inspired by a self-portrait assignment when she was a student at the University of Montevallo. She envisioned a life-size metal dress that would illustrate a balance between strength and elegance by utilizing rigid, rusted material. Fabric patterns are painted onto the sheet metal before it is cut, shaped and welded. She saves the steel scraps from the metalwear to use for jewelry designs.
“I painted sheet steel for fabric. In the end it had burn marks everywhere that I welded. I scratched and chipped paint where I hammered. I embraced this entire rugged process,” she said. “Since the first dress I have focused more on color, pattern and design. They all still hold my original purpose: to represent the strength and elegance that I want to maintain within myself and that I can see so clearly in other people…and in other art.”
Her most treasured dress in the 17-dress collection is called the Tree Top Lollipop, which was a truly wearable metal dress that required help from her husband. The name is from the lollipop-like pattern and because she said it was that unreachable thing in the treetops for such a long time.
She has a request from her youngest daughter, Amelia, for a matching blue dress.
“From the start I wanted to be able to put these dresses on, but they were all constructed on the original dress form, which is not accurate to my shape. For the 13th dress, we made a true to size dress form with duct tape and filled it with sand. I used the sandbag ‘Julia’ to build the top part of the dress down to the waist. Then my husband, Austin, helped me into it and took measurements.We built it piece by piece this way. I have only worn it over work clothes so far,” she said.
So far, Carpenter has fabricated 17 dresses from recycled materials, showing them across Alabama and as far away as Seattle. One dress can be seen at Blue Phrog Gallery in Montevallo. Carpenter has been making jewelry from aluminum roofing, teaching a Creative Welding class at Sloss Furnaces and wrapped up the Tower of Flowers project for Birmingham Southern College’s Southern Environmental Center with Montevallo graduate Jennifer Wallace. The Tower of Flowers stands more than nine feet and is placed in the North Birmingham EcoScape.
Carpenter has exhibited her metalwear at many venues in the region, including Bare Hands, Magic City Art Connection, the Kentuck Art Center, and Chattanooga's River Gallery.