Entertaining the crowd, Bay Area artist Jeff Owen’s whimsical sculpture of a figure juggling brings playfulness to Mare Island’s waterfront promenade.

Artist’s Statement:
“The Performer” began as a rare Friday evening sketch - a departure from my usual process of creating without a preliminary plan. Though I hesitated to commit to the piece initially, once I began, I couldn’t stop. I typically work quickly to “release” a sculpture from within, but the methodical process of assembling this lifesized form, one irregular shard of steel at a time, proved to be a wonderful new experience. To me, this figure is a mirror: it is the part of us that stands tall, the part that dares to be seen, and the quiet courage we carry through the long journey of becoming.

My technique is instinctual and uncompromising - brute force guided by decisions made in the moment. My creative process reveals itself through patterns. Pattern is the language that runs through all of my sculpture. I begin with a single piece of steel, adding to it or carving away from it, allowing the work to evolve until it fully embodies my creative energy. When that energy is alive and flowing, I work relentlessly toward completion. A sculpture is finished not by a plan, but by the moment the creative force subsides.

I have been an artist my entire life. My fascination with engineering and architecture informs everything I create. The shapes of metal - its patterns, textures, and grain - compel me to explore their potential. Through cutting and welding, I am free to shape steel into whatever form my vision demands. My aspiration is to create sculpture that is truly singular - work that has not existed before.

I resist conformity and reject mass production. My art is as individual and uncompromised as I am. My work belongs to the present, the future, or any time at all. It does not imitate reality or reference the external world. Instead, it draws from relationships between forms and patterns that exist independently - what I describe as contemporary abstraction.

I find deep satisfaction wandering through metal scrap yards, searching for discarded pieces of steel that speak to me. I feel a connection to inanimate objects. When I encounter something cast aside, I ask why. I wonder it was used for and where it might have been.

Every piece of metal carries its own story. Was it once part of a bridge, bearing travelers toward distant places? Was it part of a water tower, sustaining gardens below? Was it used to manufacture other objects like itself?

Once I rescue that piece from limbo, it may take moments - or months - for me to understand what it wants, or needs, to become.

Only then can I fulfill its dream.