Krawczyk’s first foray into art was a painting class in college. He says he wasn’t all that good at it, but he loved it and kept at it, turning his college room into a mini-studio. Still, a career in art was the farthest thing from his mind until a summer vacation between his junior and senior year in college. He was looking to have some fun in sunny Southern California, but his father pushed him to look up a sculptor he admired. More to appease his Dad than any real interest, Jon checked out the guy’s studio, and to his surprise, was blown away by the art and by the process. “I asked if I could come back at the end of the summer and work for him, for free. I just really wanted to learn.” Jon did come back for a couple of weeks that summer, worked hard, made a few “terrible pieces” and came to the critical decision that this is what he wanted to do with his life. After finishing his senior year, Jon packed up his car and headed west. He got a job working for a master sculptor and started his on-the-job training.

“When people ask me how I make my sculptures, I usually answer ‘with violence,’” Jon says, only half kidding. And he’s right in a sense. For Krawczyk, there is no foundry, molds or casting – every sculpture is muscled out by hand, and every one is unique. ”I start with flat sheets of metal,” he explains. “The shapes are cut and then twisted, turned, hammered, pounded – whatever I need to do to manipulate the metal. Then it’s on to welding, grinding and polishing. There’s a lot of playing with the fine details. Let’s say I have two shapes and the cut is off just a little bit. I have to deal with that, I have to manipulate it – roll it, bend it or curve it into the shape I’m looking for. That’s when I get really interesting stuff. Sometimes I let the process dictate where I’m going with a piece.”

Krawczyk’s sculptures usually fall into two distinct categories: geometric with hard angles or more fluid sculptures with softer curves. The geometric pieces are tough and masculine. Krawczyk has to be precise in his cutting and meticulous with his seam work to make sure the shapes appear whole and solid, rather than just a bunch of pieces of metal assembled together. On the other side of Krawczyk’s artistic spectrum are his softer, more sensual sculptures – a plume of smoke, a loose interpretation of the female form or the abstracted representation of a family. Unlike the geometric sculptures, these are all about smooth, gentle lines. Krawczyk polishes the pieces like the ocean batters a pebble – the more friction the smoother the surface. As for materials, he works with regular steel, aluminum and stainless, but these days he prefers bronze. He says he just knows how it’s going to react to his touch, comparing it to making love. “The opposite of having sex is making love. Aluminum is more mechanical, but bronze is beautiful. It’s like a long beautiful flowing dress versus an uptight suit,” he laughs. “So naturally, I try to work with bronze as often as possible.”
Integration into the environment is also an important part of the process. Jon likes to work big, and when he sees sculpture in an open field or tucked away in the woods, he wants the work to be an extension of the land. In man-made settings he likes the interplay between light and shadows. “The negative space is as important to me as the positive space. Several years ago, I had a piece in a gallery in Santa Fe, and at one point in the day the light was perfect – the piece had a little outcropping, and the light cast a shadow down one side in a way I’d never seen before. That moment opened up a whole new thought process for me.”

As a young sculptor, Jon tasted success fairly quickly. His first sale came almost by accident about a year and half after the move to California. He was working for another artist, and doing his own things on the side. His pieces were stored in a back room. Two clients came in to look at the other sculptor’s work, but ended up buying two pieces from Jon instead. Another six months and he opened his own gallery. There wasn’t a master plan; things just seemed to fall into place.
His whole life seems serendipitous – even how he met his wife. “I met her at her going away party. She was moving from Los Angeles to San Francisco. We met, she moved two weeks later, we dated long distance and six months later she moved back. A year and half later we got married.” They bought a fixer-upper in the hills above Malibu and two kids later, a lot of elbow grease and they have a nice little spread. The house isn’t big, but it’s comfortable. Kids’ toys are scattered all over the yard and a small pool anchors the patio, with amazing views of the canyons. Jon’s studio and work area is down the hill – about fifty steps straight down. It’s a good work out for Jon who goes up and down a lot. Being close to his kids is a big bonus.

As charmed as his life may seem, it has not always been easy. Two years ago his wife became very ill and almost died. Jon stopped working for about six months. “I needed to take care of the kids and my wife – she was almost on her death bed. It was tough. I came out of that with a different perspective on my work. I thought, ‘ If I’m going to be a major sculptor I need to make my move.’ I felt I needed to pay attention to where my work is shown, which collections, which museums. It was time to get serious.” Since then Krawczyk has split his time about 50-50 between the business of art and the creating of art – that is until the New Jersey Devils called.

The Devils’ commission had been in the works for months. It got started when Jon learned that the Vice President of the Devils was a graduate of his high school. Jon had just done a large bronze cross for the small catholic school and asked if officials there would be willing to make an introductory call. They made the call and that started negotiations. Last Christmas Jon heard through the grapevine that he would get the commission, but he didn’t get the confirmation call until late spring. He would have only a few months to pull together a very complicated, large piece. “I really wasn’t worried,” he says. “I’m not a procrastinator. I know I’ll get it done.” But he would have no time to waste. It would be a long hot summer – even when the temperature soared above 100 degrees, Jon sweated through his protective clothing, wielding his blowtorch like a paintbrush.

Not much seems to faze Jon Krawczyk. He tends to take things as they come and let them play out. “I don’t know if I believe in destiny, but I believe that if you put good stuff out there, good stuff happens to you. The whole idea that you have to be depressed or have to be a starving artist to make it is poppycock,” he says. Poppycock? He laughs. “That’s my son’s influence. I would normally say bullshit, and I do think it’s bullshit. I’m happy. I’m lucky – a wife, two kids, a nice place and I’m doing what I want to do. I don’t have a big ego. I do what I do because I love seeing the stuff built. I don’t need to be great, but I do want to do great things.”

Krawczyk has come full circle – from the brash young kid who didn’t have a clue what he was going to do with his life to the man with a mission, and he knows who deserves a lot of the credit. “My father collected sculpture. I was always around great art and that’s what got me thinking about sculpture. It didn’t come from nowhere.” Jon’s life is firmly rooted in California now, but when he goes back East to install a 6-thousand pound sculpture, he will also weld his past with his present, and he knows his Dad will be proud.

Written by: Erin Clark

ARTWORKS Magazine