In The Shop                        What Jim Does!  The Process  Current Projects

Jim works in a small shop situated next to his home on 10 acres just outside of Bozeman, MT. The shop itself is small enough to make things cozy in the winters but large enough to complete most of his artwork indoors. That isn't to say that he hasn't had thoughts of building a new shop. Each time the thought comes around he is reminded that more projects can always fit in the shop if he cleans it regularly, but for an artist that can be a challenge.

In the summer, Jim loves to keep the big garage door open to let in the air and cool down the heat that is generated from his oven and welders. Given that the plasma torch reaches temperatures of 4000 degrees farenheit and his big custom oven tends to add to the already hot summer weather, Jim is thankful for any breeze that will come in a summer afternoon. You may also note that you will rarely see Jim in short sleeves or shorts. To protect himself from both burns and welding spatter, Jim has to cover his body generally with a long sleeve shirt, heavy jeans and some chaps to stay safe. Jim jokes that he looks like he is straight out of the movie "Road Warrior" when he is all geared up with his protective gear!

The shop does have its height limitations which means that in the summers there is a great opportunity to do work outside, but in the winters it means that Jim is going to get cold! One of the considerations Jim always has to take into account with the size of his shop, is that the ceilling is higher than the doors. This has caused much hilarity in the Dolan studio as many of his sculptures are able to be turned horizontally and moved outside of the shop, but the occasional Globe has caused Jim's measurements be extremely accurate so that he doesn't have to remove a wall to move the sculpture outside!

Jim uses an arc welder and gas welder to piece together his sculptures from the patterns that he cuts out of large sheets of steel with his plasma torch. One of Jim's great strengths as an artist is that he can visuallize his sculpture exactly what it will look like when finished before he even starts. Give him a piece of chalk and away he goes, drawing patterns that will be used to create the structure that will be used to create the skeletons which he brings to life.

Jim fleshes together the skeletal structures and gives them a life-like feel so that the observers may feel like they are viewing an actual piece of wildlife. That isn't to say that Jim doesn't have his share of abstract and sureal pieces. In fact Jim's artistic style has grown to be much more abstract as he has evolved over the last 30 years of sculpting. He still enjoys doing life-like sculptures but he does like to have a diverse skill set to draw upon when he is approached to do a sculpture.

The "Process" of which Jim creates his sculptures will be documented here. This section will document a piece of artwork from start to finish. This can be requested by a customer to help document the creation of thier artwork.

Stay tuned for the first edition of "The Process".

What is Jim working on currently in his shop? Every week or so this section will be updated to show what Jim is currently working on. He may have several projects going on at any given time, and you may see some exciting artwork being created!