How A Part Time Hobbyist Accidentally Became One Of The World's Best Wire Sculptors.

I love this story! A man in England named Robin Wright had been an artist and craftsman for as long as he could remember. He mostly did drawings and wood carvings but also made ornaments with copper and other metals.

In 2009 he was in the woods near his place in Staffordshire testing out a new camera. Later when he was studying the photos he found that he had captured what looked like a real fairy in the trees!

It may be the only fairy caught on camera

I admit the photo DOES look like an actual fairy..possibly the first one ever captured by a camera! My apologies, I couldn't get a copy of it to load here.

But, you can go to his site, fantasywire.co.uk and click on the "about us" tab and then click the "The Fairytale" link and it will take you to the remarkable photo.

If you like his art you'll want to go there anyway and see all the different fairy sculptures.

He didn't start trying to replicate the image that he saw right away.

It was later when he was mending a fence and wadded up some extra wire that he realized that wire would be a good medium to work with because it was pliable but strong and would hold it's shape.

That fairy photo was his inspiration

And then he remembered the fairy photo so he went to work trying to duplicate that. After he learned how to construct them with the proper proportions he hid them in the nature reserve trails behind his house.

Purely by coincidence the marketing manager for The Trentham Estate gardens was walking the trail and spotted the fairies. He later got an email and they wanted to meet with him. He thought they wanted him to do a commission piece but they wanted to buy all his fairies!

Going viral

So he sold them and they put them in their gardens. Well, it wasn't long before photos of the fairies were showing up on Reddit and Imgur and he was overwhelmed with thousands of requests each day.

An instant online business

Robin isn't a full time artist, he's a software developer.
So he created a family business with his wife, daughter, and other family members called Fantasy Wire. They sell starter kits so people can learn how to do their own sculptures and they also sell dandelion sculptures.

Most pieces were small, 8 inches to a few feet but Trentham Estate wanted him to do a life-sized fairy as a center piece for their property so he created this one called "Wishes"

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The variety of sculptures is amazing. Here are a few of them:

I love the way he does that hair:

Here's one on the gate to the garden paths at The Trentham Estate:

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Another one at the Trentham gardens:

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This is a super cool one that's actually a weather vane:

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Here's Robin working on a fairy:

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How to buy one

That's a great question because you can't just order one on the site. If you're interested in buying one you can email him but he admits that he's terrible at getting back with people.

The way he sells them on commission, IF he decides to do so, it's only after he gets to know someone and likes them. lol.

One of the unique aspects of his creations is a stone heart that he places in each piece which is made specifically for that individual sculpture with an engraved message on it, usually tailored to the person buying it.

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It's brilliant marketing. If you want one, it's going to take some time and it's going to be very expensive.. many thousands of dollars. I don't really think he's doing it for the money though.

Thanks for reading folks, God bless you all!
-jonboy
Texas