When I was an art student, in my first metal sculpture class the teachers (we had two) would give us a word, and we were to interpret that through a metal sculpture.
The first word for my very first metal project was: Paradox.

I had never touched a welder before, but I immediately fell in love with it. While most students were buying sheets of shiny new sheet metal from Home Depot, I scavenged the metal yard for scraps and found these gnarly, rusted 12 gauge scrap metal pieces. I had to modify them a bit with a plasma cutter to create the cup triangles, then pound the triangles into a bra-cup shape using a 10lb hammer and an old Christmas tree stand that I'd found lying around. I felt strong. Creative. I wasn't a good welder at all when I started. I tried to make lacy designs from the weld. I remember how important to me it was that it be functional, actually something someone could wear (yes, many have tried it on.) I love hearing all the different meanings people pull from it when they see it. This old bra is very "me" in a lot of ways.

The simplest story about it is that it was the first metal project I ever made. I went on to make a lot more things out of metal but this is the only one I kept. The straps are made of barbed wire, I “sewed” hinges onto the sides by drilling little holes and threading wire through to fasten them on tightly. The closure in the back was once a seatbelt buckle I found in my dad’s ol’ pile of junk, it had once belonged in a 1976 Thunderbird.
The only evidence in existence that I made stuff from metal at one point in my life.