Congratulations are in order for EVS Texas (Pflugerville-Austin) welder Michael Miller, who recently won his second-consecutive Skills USA competition at the state level. Michael won for his piece entitled “Kinship,” which was created to represent his modern, blended family.
An excerpt from Michael’s artist’s statement reads:
Kinship is a sculpture about the joining of two families. I had originally planned to build a sculpture that expressed my wife and I’s lives growing together. It was going to be just two figures intertwined with arms wrapped around each other in a slow dance. I had sketched it out, and had even started to build the two figures, but it seemed to be missing something. It didn’t tell the whole story of our life together. It didn’t show that each of us came into the relationship with children from previous marriages, and how we have come together as one family.
This sculpture, like my journey, started as one thing and has evolved into so much more. I hope that people that view this sculpture see a family coming together and can relate it to their family in some way. “Kinship” is born from two people came together, and formed an entirely new family.
Michael will be heading to Louisville, KY, at the end of May for the National Championship.
