More than a job

In 1973, Metz became one of three faculty members in the UM Art Department.

“I came here and ended up loving the place,” he said. “It was like my creative practice and my teaching weren’t separated; it was all one lifestyle. It was kind of seamless.”

In his early work, Metz made abstract sculpture and experimented with ceramics and steel to create pieces based on geological concepts such as the cyclical life of clay, which he learned about in a geology course he took in undergraduate school.

“The information in that class became the core of my creative output for almost 20 years,” he said. “My work was geologically inspired.”

Metz had always wanted to do public art. In 1990, he seized his first opportunity: To create an outdoor public sculpture commissioned by the Bluff Park Art Association for the Hoover Municipal Center.

The piece, a 43-foot-tall stainless steel structure called “Becoming,” is symbolic of the city’s potential to grow and looks like a building that has not yet been completed, Metz said.

In order to design and construct the towering sculpture, Metz elicited the help of a professional engineer and other construction professionals.

He went on to build commissioned pieces at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (“Strata,” a 30-foot outdoor public sculpture for the campus made of steel, cast steel, cast iron, aluminum and asphalt, 1992); HealthSouth corporate headquarters in Birmingham (“Diagnostic Image,” a 10-foot high bronze and stainless steel piece, 1997); and Aldridge Gardens in Hoover (“On The Nature Of Building,” a public sculpture commissioned by the Bluff Park Association, 2012).