Artist Interview: Quentin Egginton
Quentin with the axe head he forged and welded in summer camp this year, which won a first place prize at the MN State Fair.
Quentin with his hot dog skewer, featured in a CAFAC gallery show in 2018.
We are excited to highlight the work of another CAFAC student and artist, 15-year old Quentin Egginton. This fall he’s taking his 12th class at CAFAC, having started back in 2015 with a summer camp sampler class. He says, “We somehow stumbled across CAFAC’s website, and figured it would be something cool to do. So I took the sampler and learned that I really like metalworking.”
“We did blacksmithing and plasma cutting and some welding, and out of those I liked blacksmithing the most. So for the next few years I continued doing that every summer. And in more recent years, I’ve been branching out a bit more in the things I do at CAFAC, like welding, casting and that sort of stuff, so it’s been fun.”
Blacksmithing is still Quentin’s favorite. He recently took CAFAC’s forge building class so he could work on blacksmithing projects with his own forge at home. In that class, he was by far the youngest student, but he said the teachers and some of the more experienced students made him feel welcome. “The instructors were very helpful when I sometimes couldn’t keep up. I’m hoping soon to finally get the rest of the things I need to get the forge operational.”
And Quentin has been busy. Besides preparing to start the 10th grade at Nova Classical Academy, he entered a project that he made at CAFAC into this year’s Technology Education competition at the Minnesota State Fair, and he won first place.
“This year, I entered an axe head that I made at one of the welding and metal fabrication classes that I took this summer. It’s not quite finished yet, but the form alone, I guess, was enough to get it first place, which is exciting, as always. Two or three years prior I actually submitted another one of my blacksmithing projects, and that one also got first place. That project was a double egg spoon that I made. It was a very unique design.”
In addition to his passion for metalwork, Quentin likes to create sculptures out of other media, such as cardboard. And he will be delving into new territory when he takes glassmaking at CAFAC this fall. But, even when playing video games, he is still getting inspiration for metalwork projects. He says, “Metal arts are a great medium of art where you can do things that not a lot of sorts of artistic materials will allow you to do. It’s a good way to make things that are useful and artistic.”
At CAFAC, we love to hear that we’ve ignited a spark in someone’s life. Quentin started working in the fire arts young, but is looking forward to growing his skills into the future. “One thing that CAFAC has definitely helped me with is thinking about future possible careers with metalworking. I quite enjoy welding and that’s something that I’ve definitely thought about as a career option later in life.”