Michael Warrick named Arkansas Living Treasure

We are very pleased to share that National Sculptors' Guild Fellow Michael Warrick has been recognized by the Arkansas Arts Council as the 2020 Arkansas Living Treasure for his work and dedication to the craft of metalworking.

“Creating and teaching are very important to me,” Warrick said. “I have made it a personal goal to help others learn and create through the craft of metalworking. In my own creative metalwork, it is my hope that I can bring elements of our humanity and history through the craft.”

Warrick, who teaches at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, has been shown locally and internationally. His work was shown in a solo touring exhibition in 1996 that appeared in the Strause Gallery of the Arkansas Arts Center. A recent sample of Warrick’s work sits in front of the main entrance to the new Windgate Art + Design building at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith.

Warrick’s work has appeared in exhibitions and public installations locally and worldwide. He regularly does commission work, including a piece he created in 2017 for the Little Rock Sister City Commission to give to the City of Hanam in South Korea. A video about that project is available via UALRTV.

Warrick is currently completing an 18-foot stainless-steel with gold leaf sculpture "Mockingbird/Orange Tree" commissioned through the National Sculptors' Guild for The Groves in Whittier, California.

Warrick has studied his craft for more than 30 years. He started learning metalworking in 1967, when he took an industrial arts class in high school that included welding. He became a certified welder in 1972 and worked on large-scale mining equipment trucks, industrial fixtures and railroad cars.

He attended Illinois State University as an art student in 1976. There, he learned metal casting and sculpting, and as a graduate student, he learned to work with cast iron. By 1995, he had picked up the technique of ceramic shell casting, which allowed him to cast finer and thinner bronze works.

Warrick is constantly learning, experimenting and evolving. In 2015, he learned 3D printing with polylactic acid plastic (PLA) and used the new technology in tandem with traditional lost wax casting for his metalwork. The resulting large-scale, 21-by-15-by-15-foot sculpture sits today outside the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock. The sculpture is a fascinating mix of stainless steel, bronze, glass and concrete that celebrates the Louisiana Purchase.

“I am a firm believer that there is much value to learning traditional methods for creating in cast metal,” Warrick said. “I am also curious about contemporary techniques in the production of objects and how they might be enhanced by joining old and new techniques.”

Warrick is committed to maintaining and advancing his craft through mentoring, teaching, lecturing, demonstrating and building through teamwork. Since joining UALR in the fall of 1990, Warrick has been instrumental in securing grants, including one to build a foundry and kilns for metal casting for the university. Another grant allowed him to bring in renowned lecturers in metalworking. He also sat on a committee that brought public sculptures to the university to “embellish the culturally rich environment.” 

Warrick is known as a dedicated instructor who teaches multiple metalworking courses. He said being a mentor to metalworking students is vital because mentors perpetuate the craft and can change lives. He has mentored students at ULAR, supervised interns from the University of Central Arkansas and taught students from his home studio. He has consulted and taught workshops and classes in Indiana and Tennessee.