FARMINGTON — The creative work of sculptor and metal artist Jay Sawyer will be on view through Thursday, Nov. 3, at UMF Emery Community Arts Center. The opening reception for “Sculpture Soup” will be held from 5 to 7 p.m., Friday, Sept. 9. The exhibit is free and open to the public.

From his education at Maine Maritime Academy to his welding and mobile repair business in the 1990s — Sawyer has always been drawn to the practical function of steel, iron and other salvaged materials. As he continued to work with the “rusty gold” and castoff materials he found his own gift for transforming a mangled piece of rusty steel into a work of art. As he re-envisions, heats, reshapes, hammers and welds the scrap metal he gives the material an opportunity to tell a new story.

“These discarded and salvaged materials really speak to me,” said Sawyer said in a news release from the arts center. “I see their former practical use and the beauty of their form and balance. Then I let the materials speak for themselves and that leads to a new life for them as a unique art form.”

Sawyer’s Studio JBONE in Warren, is where he creates his one-of-a-kind sculptures and displays them in his outdoor gallery. “The Maestro,” a metal sculpture commissioned for a couple from Delaware, shows his deft hand with the twisted steel. The couple wanted a piece that celebrated music and from a pile of salvaged metal from the American Can Company plant in Portland, Sawyer created a work of art.

A Maine native, Sawyer’s first art show was in 2007 in Cushing. His works are on display in the public art collection at the Portland International Jetport; the Owls Head Transportation Museum; the Boothbay Region Art Foundation in Boothbay Harbor and Hyatt Place in Columbia, South Carolina, among others.

For more information, call 778-7319, or email jdecker@maine.edu.