We had the good fortune of connecting with Alex Molzahn and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Alex, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
I kind’ve fell into starting my own business! I had quit a welding manufacturing job to travel, but my travel plans fell through. I ended up running into a carpenter I knew who needed an extra set of hands for a project so I started working with him. It’s pretty common in the small carpentry industry for extra hands to be paid under the table with no paperwork, but that didn’t sit well with me, so that fall I formed my own LLC and have gone through the process of learning what it takes to run a small business, from liability insurance, taxes, billing, project management, etc. When people started learning that I had the skills and tools to work with wood and metal I started picking up more and more work, it’s been a great experience despite the headaches of running a business!

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
It’s been a fun journey so far! My parents are both artists, and my brother and I were both raised as creative types. When I finally moved to a space where I could weld on my own, and started getting access to scrap metal to work with, everything just clicked and I became hooked on turning trash metal into sculptures. I feel like I’ve come into my own style of metalwork where I turn scrap objects into usable stock, and from that turn them into sculptures where the original material is unrecognizable, compared to other artists who incorporate the original material into their design, which is interesting in its own way! Its just not my style. My proudest sculpture to date is my minotaur bust, it’s the first piece that I put over 100 hours into, and it’s made of hand rails, bed frames, file cabinets, stoves, etc. Just whatever I could get my hands on! I’m currently working on a massive dragon, when its completed it should be about 16 feet tall to the wing tips and 14 feet long from the chest to the tail. The biggest challenge with this piece is the scale and the size of my workspace, I work out of a single car garage space, so I’ve had to build it in pieces, and now off of ladders and eventually scaffolding in my driveway!

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
We’d go checkout my local climbing gym, Summit Strength and Fitness, and then climb at our local parks, Devil’s Lake State Park and Governor Dodge State Park, and at some point hit the Great Dane and Vintage Brewing Co for food and drinks!

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I’d love to thank my Welding Instructors at Madison Technical College for teaching me how to weld, my uncle Jeff for giving me advice on running a business sustainably, and my climbing community at Summit Strength and Fitness of Madison, Wi for all their support!

Website: Admetalwork.com

Instagram: Admetalwork

Facebook: AD Metalwork

Image Credits
Josh Zweck, @Jazie_pics

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