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INFOCUS MULTIMEDIA SERIES
BY GREG LINDSTROM
Lee Proctor, left, sprinkles crushed, colored glass as Nate Adoretti ladles lique ed glass onto a mold as the pair creates pieces for a large metal and glass chandelier in Proctor’s Bigfork studio.
FORGING AN ARTIST’S PATH Lee Proctor, Proctor Studios
As Lee Proctor and Nate Adoretti ladle lique ed glass into a curved mold less than two inches wide, the process looks practiced and polished. But the path of an artist wasn’t always the plan for Proctor.
“I was going to major in ecology and animal sciences and stu like that – save the world, you know?” Proctor said from his studio near Bigfork.
But one watercolor class with Karen Noice at Flathead Val- ley Community College changed all that.
“I’ve always felt like I was living pretty intuitively as I moved toward art. It felt right,” he said.
Proctor learned blacksmithing skills during his summers shoeing horses while he went to school. He started making sculptures as gifts for friends and family, and ended up jump- ing into the arts full time. Now, he and his team at Proctor Studios focus on commissioned architectural art and func- tional sculptures made with metal and glass.
Although he has been creating works of art for more than 30 years, Proctor still has a passion for the process.
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and I think that’s what drives you.” Have a good story idea? Call 257-9220 or email greg@ atheadbeacon.com
“The more you make and the more you do, the more you realize you want to do,” he said. “One idea leads to another,
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JANUARY 13, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM