DIGITAL ART

I didn't discover my interest in art and sculpture until just before retirement, having spent most of my working life as a pilot. Life after flying - and before retirement - (see below) exposed me to computers. My delight on discovering that Photoshop would allow the malicious yet nondestructive distortion of the (film) photos I'd shot years earlier was overwhelming.

Now I’m slowly learning how to take photos and videos digitally, as well as learning how to paint and draw digitally and also experimenting with recording and editing my guitar playing and surfing videos.

METAL SCULPTURE

I stumbled onto metal sculpture, after deciding that custom made metal porch enclosures were too expensive, so I made my own - as well as several more for other people. However, because they’re so heavy, I switched to creating sculptures, which are either lighter or modular. I also work with weathered rock and timber.

Although I have no formal art or sculptural training, I'm a perpetually autodidactic rookie, happily misguided by neurons synapsing off left, right and centre. Is ambidexterity fashionable yet? I hope not.

So, I'm just eternally grateful that the passion I felt for flying aircraft transferred across to manipulating images on a computer screen to create BIZARRTE digital imagery, as well as twisting iron to create TWISTED IRONY metal sculptures.

COMMERCIAL AVIATION

Well before discovering digital imagery and metal sculpture, I led a completely different life as a pilot, flying aeroplanes in the remote Outback of Australia and the mountains of Papua New Guinea. Before I gained my airline pilot licence (for planes), I got a commercial helicopter pilot licence, but couldn’t find a job flying choppers, so I mustered cattle in aeroplanes instead, hoping to convert to choppers one day. 

Mustering cattle involves rounding up the cattle that stockmen have missed due to terrain. This often means diving the plane towards the ground near the bulls that refuse to move and then climbing in a very tight circle to come back to swoop near them again, until the cattle start moving again. This was not only fun, it was legal!  

This experience led to me landing a job as an airline pilot (oh, a pun!) in Papua New Guinea, where we flew up mountain valleys that were daily exposed to tropical storms. There are very few roads, so villages are accessed either by walking for days or by flying for minutes. In between various flying jobs, I also taught ultralight student pilots how to fly. I hardly flew helicopters at all after gaining my licence, but they've given me a much better appreciation of flying! 

During my holidays in Victoria, I instructed ultralight student pilots, flying open cockpit aircraft such as the Gemini Thruster and the Austflight Drifter. Sitting in these aircraft, the view is similar to that of a motor bike, except the ground falls away!

All of these types of low level flying provided adrenalin in the sugar-cube sized lumps I craved! Enjoying a bird's eye view of the earth, sea and sky from varying heights above the earth's surface from the very front row of different aircraft types was a buzz, as much as was the actual flying. However, I soon tired of living out of suitcases and far too often NOT living at all, so I finally quit the aviation industry on my fifth attempt.

SURFING N MUSIC

I love playing guitar badly, started in 1968 and have been slowly improving when I joined a band as their lead and slide guitarist in 2010. I also love surfboard riding, having started as a youngster in 1964, but definitely have NOT been improving with age, although I still LOVE surfing!

May you find something here to spark your interests and live your life to the max!

Casey Herman

Twisted IRONy is an Australian registered trademark. All the images and text are copyright of Casey Herman, except for the photo of me on this page by Joseph Darmenia and some of the images in the Body Torque Gallery, which are by Feminine Mystique.