From excursions to a city dump to exploring Laumeier Sculpture Park, Dale Dicker discusses how he discovered the medium of welded steel and his three-dimensional illustration style.
By Jennie Quick
Where most of us might see only a pile of rusting steel, old tools, gears, auto parts, and derelict tractors, St. Louis metal artist Dale Dicker sees “an unlimited palette” out of which he can build representational steel figures or larger abstract sculptures. Having recently retired from his career as a licensed clinical social worker, Dicker says that he welcomes transitioning from the healing arts to working full time in the metal arts. He joined Heartland Art Club two years ago and has several pieces on display, including his twelve-foot-long, six-car steam train visible in the upstairs gallery.
Dicker wasn’t always interested in art. No one in his family was especially creative, nor did the men work much with tools. However, as a child, he was fascinated by construction sites and building equipment. While in his early twenties as an undergraduate and then graduate student at the University of Missouri, Columbia, he met many creative people. Wanting to participate in an artistic endeavor, he took up photography. In addition to studying psychology, he nurtured interests in history and archaeology. One day, he and his twin brother took shovels to the city dump where they dug up detritus from the past – old bottles, tools, and rusting scrap metal. They hauled all this “treasure” back to their rented house on the edge of town. Soon, they began to gather more treasure from likely sites such as barn cleanouts and old farm junk piles. Dicker says that he had fun examining the “collection” that he and his brother kept in the basement, but didn’t have a clear idea of what to do with it. It was their next-door neighbor who suggested that he try welding with his Lincoln stick welder. However, neither Dicker nor the neighbor knew how to weld, but they turned on the welder anyway and got started. “It was exciting, fun, and dangerous,” Dicker recalled.
His first sculpture was of a man doing pushups, which he made using large bolts and a trailer connector for a head. Dicker lets the materials guide his creative process. First, he lays out the materials and studies them. If a piece looks like a hat, he can make it into a hat; if it suggests a face, he makes it into a face. “A lot of times, I have an idea, but I don’t always know what it will be,” he says. “I have an intuition of how I think it should look. When I get stuck, I don’t just quit. I put it aside and practiced being patient, and eventually it came to fruition.”Patience and persistence have contributed to his growth as an artist. A summer job at a truck garage proved beneficial for metalworking. He learned to do body work, repairing fenders and cutting out damaged steel. As he pursued his professional career, he continued developing metalworking skills and his art. As an E.A.P.
Metal sculptor Dale Dicker inside his studio.
therapist for a construction group, he would meet up with some of the iron workersin their shop, where they would teach him how to use certain tools and offer advice on how to construct an artistic idea.
The St. Louis area has been a great source of inspiration for Dicker’s work. He spent a lot of time in the ‘60s and ’70s studying sculpture at Laumeier Sculpture Park and the National Museum of Transportation, with its vast collection of rolling stock. Dicker credits a slew of sculptural heavyweights, including St. Louis’ Ernest Trova and Bob Cassilly, for influencing his stylistic approach. Other influences include David Smith, Louise Nevelson, Richard Hunt, Alexander Calder, and Richard Stankiewicz.
Today, Dicker works out of a large studio in his backyard in Chesterfield. Hidden somewhere in that same backyard, he confesses, is a large pile of scrap metal. In an interesting comment on his work, Dicker noted that while many representational artists working in a one-dimensional format, like a canvas, strive to create the illusion of depth and form in three dimensions, he aims to create the illusion of a one-dimensional drawing in three-dimensional metal. “Put another way, I view my work as three-dimensional illustrating,” he says.
Dale Dicker’s six-car train is on display in the upstairs gallery of Heartland Art Club.