rtist and sculptor Jeff Decker has a mind for motorcycles, and his ability to bring man and machine into being through the bronze medium is a talent that few other individuals have ever possessed. Well aware of the infamous starving artist trope, Decker said he never expected to make a living through the production of any form of creative expression, and yet, to his great surprise, Decker’s sculpting skills ultimately proved to be a lucrative enough pursuit to help him to support his family’s modest lifestyle at their current home base in Utah. With his most celebrated works today trading hands for tens of thousands of dollars, Decker has done well for himself, to say the least, and to this day, he maintains that the credit for his inspiration belongs almost solely to his singular mechanical muse: the motorcycle. Decker said his original intent was to create a series of sculptures centered on “Man’s Quest for Speed,” the idea being to produce a piece to represent each major motor vehicle introduced throughout history, from the train and the automobile to the boat and the airplane. However, when he got to the motorcycle, Decker said he found himself frozen in his tracks. Decker was first introduced to the bronze medium while working at a casting foundry in the mid ‘90s, but he’d been creating art since he was just a boy in the shadow of his father, who he said was his hero and idol. “Because I was always in my dad’s shadow, I tried to express myself in a different way, which was art … and my subject matter was naturally mechanical,” he explained. “I don’t think I ever chose my path—it just came to me. I was groomed to be what I am. I’m not original, I’m not special. I’m not unique. I’m just simply what I was supposed to be when I grew up.” While Decker may leave the credit for the path he has taken in life to something larger than himself, he acknowledges that the route to personal success was a winding one. Af ter graduating high school in 1984, Decker wasted no time heading straight to university, enrolling at Brigham Young to further his knowledge and skills in the realm of fine art. Coming from a life lived at weekend swap meets and road and track races—closer to the Hell’s Angels than to any educated artists or aristocrats—the art world wasn’t a place where Decker felt comfor tably at home, but he powered through nonetheless, doing his best to marry his MECUM.COM // 85 own unique experiences and interests with the seemingly foreign world in which he found himself. Before finding his calling in casting, Decker and his wife first tried to make their living in the restaurant business, owning and operating a tiny outfit they created themselves. When that pursuit fizzled, Decker went to work at the foundry, hoping to build upon his mechanical restoration abilities as well as his skills in sculpting. It soon proved to be a perfect fit, with Decker finding a passion for the lost-wax process, which he has claimed is the “only form of art that is truly mechanical.” Decker explained that to be successful in the bronze-sculpting practice, “You need to learn mold-making and welding and casting and metallurgy and patination, and all these different things—which, to me, are so much like painting a car, rebuilding a motor, massaging a steel panel. And so, I saw the likeness of this high art form to what I was familiar with.”
