"Understated" best describes the artist James Oleson, but certainly not his larger-than-life metal sculptures. "I work with found materials," he said. "It's all steel." Car parts and scraps from fabrication and welding shops. An old meter is the head on "Time Expired," his sculpture of a meter man who represents the shift of jobs from man to machine. "Reaching Enlightenment," a piece featuring an under frame of tube steel and stainless banding. "There's this calm look about her, a calmness of mind," Oleson said. "It's about reaching that higher level of consciousness, where you no longer judge other people and you don't get caught up in control dramas and you don't steal other people's energy." The piece was his most challenging, he said, because the female body "demands so much with its tight curves." But his newest piece, "Big Business," is his favorite piece, because "it's strong and it evokes a lot of emotion." It's composition includes rebar, clutch fans, gears, nails, brake pads, brake shoes, a keyless entry contraption, and clamps. "It's all found materials," Oleson stressed again. This business man, working on all cylinders, stands on discarded gears. He's holding a huge, rotating globe, signifying "the weight of the world on his shoulders." Oleson's talent is inbred. His grandfather, the late Bud Oleson, sculpted the metal horses in the median of Bayshore Boulevard in downtown Tampa. James Oleson's inspiration comes from what society discards, in most every scrap he finds. As he put it: "You pick it up and it looks like something to you, and then it grows into a sculpture."
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