Forging ahead: Scott McKay, metalwork artist
By Judy Finkbeiner Johnson
If you live or visit Grand Bend or have spent any time in St. Thomas, you have been fortunate to see the metalwork sculptures of an exceptionally talented artist.
Driving down the Grand Bend strip towards the main beach near the traffic circle, there is a large metal fish named Stewie the Sturgeon. No ordinary fish, he came into the world at the suggestion and guidance of Teresa Marie Phillips, founder and curator of Paint Ontario. Stewie came from the imagination and creativity of acclaimed metal artist Scott McKay, welcoming visitors to Paint Ontario in 2021 before he was installed in his present location.
McKay grew up in an artistic family where both of his parents painted. He admits that he “sucked at art in school” when he was young.
His journey to metal sculpture took a path not heavily travelled. Like the road roundabouts where several of his major art installations are located, there were options for different directions. He didn’t choose a straight-line shortest distance to this life passion.
McKay grew up in the country outside Waterloo. In the early 1990s he received a degree in geography. He not only shared that interest with his father, but also a classroom at Laurier University with his dad who was a professor teaching geography there.
By around 1997, McKay was working as a construction millwright building feed mills in the Huron County area.
“Lots of work was done in Hensall,” he said. “My skills of working with metal developed over this time — welding, cutting, and learning to rig steel — getting it into position and moving it about. Those skills would play a strong role in my artwork later.”
The spark that ignited his artistic creativity was seeing a metal bird sculpture that his sister purchased.
“I liked what I saw and thought I could do that with my own skill set.”
He began working in factory millwright jobs which made it possible for him to rent a shop in a fixed location where he could create metal art using prefabricated, “found” materials like machinery parts, agricultural equipment, and salvage from the factories.
It wasn’t long before the artist wanted more control over the source material for his art. The next direction took him to the Haliburton School of Art and Design where he completed the artist blacksmithing program in 2006. He was intrigued by new possibilities for his metal sculptures by controlling flames and hot metals. This is when he began using Corten steel, also known as weathering steel, for projects.
Unlike other metals where rust forms over cycles of wet and dry and degrades the base, Corten steel is a mixture of alloys that enables formation of a protective patina of varied rust colours within a few months. Its strength and changing palette over time appeal to McKay.
In the beginning, Scott established a blacksmith shop in Glencoe and later west of London called Strong Arm Forge in Iona Station.
“It was certainly hard at first, getting in front of people, trying various trade, art and home shows,” he said. “I was still working in the mining sector on a fly-in fly-out basis, two weeks on and off working at three different diamond mines — Ekati diamond mine in Northwest Territories, Tahera diamond mine in Nunavut and Victor diamond mine in Northern Ontario.”
With steely determination, McKay kept his focus on creating large public art pieces, submitting over 30 various applications before his first project, being selected to sculpt artwork for Thunder Bay’s new EMS building. He said it took almost a metric tonne of stainless steel to create the piece, which he formed into the peak wave on an electrocardiogram.
“I fabricated it in Glencoe and drove it to Thunder Bay,” he said. “I was thrilled to have the piece installed.”
From there, McKay continued with competitions for public art while balancing a buildup of private commissions.
For many, McKay’s iconic 2017 sculptures in St. Thomas, the Railway City, are what comes to mind. The sheer size, scope, and energy of these works demand attention from the viewer. The train sculpture on the roundabout on the north side of town was assembled on site and involved a crane and a flatbed to get it into place.
McKay said the piece in St. Thomas took 1,000 to fabricate, as well as an additional 200 hours for the design process. Those efforts resulted in a piece that stretches 18 metres in length and stands more than six metres tall.
“Around the same time, I was doing a lot of work for the Elevated Park on the 1929 Railway Bridge in St. Thomas installing six of my pieces there,” he added.
In 2021, McKay created and installed several sculptures for another roundabout in St. Thomas and then moved to the Bancroft area to build a house over the winter. His wife, Mary-Ellen, was finishing up her career as a police dispatcher for the City of London and followed shortly after with her retirement.
It wasn’t long before he began having wrist issues that weren’t resolved with three surgeries, resulting in no more big commissions being planned — except for one project close to his heart.
He had proposed a large horse sculpture made with found pieces to various organizations, but it was never accepted.
McKay said he is happy about that.
“The end game for my metal sculpture is working on that one piece for our own yard,” he said. “I would have liked to have kept most of the pieces I have created. Every one is a part of me and my experience to that point.”
McKay said he is considering exploring small, cast sculpture in a lost-wax style. The style involves an exacting sequence of steps including creating the sculpture in clay and building a rubber mould around it that is filled with liquid wax. The wax is dipped to form a hard ceramic shell that is put into a kiln where the wax melts and a hollow mould remains to be filled, cast with molten metal.
Today, McKay and Mary-Ellen live in the bush, where they fish, hunt and grow vegetables. Their household also includes a border collie mix and four husky mixes. Music remains central to their lives: McKay plays banjo and hopes to return to the bagpipes as his hands permit, while Mary-Ellen plays harp and is a member of a local bell choir.
As McKay forges a new artistic future, admirers of his sculptures will eagerly be watching to see how his unique experiences and perspectives guide what comes next.
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