Local artist of the week

When a friend of Chad Haselden asked him to cover a coffee table in copper, a spark ignited in his mind that soon became a flame.

Haselden took a torch to the copper table covering to see how it would look and over the past two years, he has been evolving the way he creates his copper art. First, he takes a piece of roofing copper and cuts his "canvas" into 30-inch by 30-inch pieces. The process forms organically: he draws, engraves or paints an image onto the copper and then applies different acids such as selenium dioxide to react with the metal and create a palate of color. Or he just takes a hammer and a blow torch to the canvas and see what happens.

These large scale copper creations are one-of-a-kind works of art that can take hours or days to complete. Haselden uses paintbrushes, Q-tips, cotton swabs and old T-shirts to pour the different acids onto the metal.

He is a completely self-taught artist that experimented with drawing and tattooing as a means of artful expression until he settled on copper sheeting as his way to communicate to the world through art.

"I haven't done the same thing twice. The process is still evolving," he said.

Web site: http://www.ikmtp.com/gpage3.html.

Next Event: March 31, Global Awareness Project Spring Art Show, Myrtle Beach. http://theglobalawarenessproject.blogspot.com.

Birth date and place: July 19, 1971, Johnsonville, S.C.

Education: Associates degree in science, Greenville Technical College, 1993.

Career: Employee at New Corp. Steel Plant in Berkeley County.

Residence: Mount Pleasant, 10 years.

What book are you reading right now?: I don't remember what the name was but I'm sure it had a lot of pictures and trivial facts in it.

What music are you listening to?: Public Enemy, T.V. on the Radio, My Morning Jacket.

Price range: $300-$1,200 and is available for commission work.