Carving, sculping, shaping; Paul Dimmer has been getting creative with materials since he was old enough to acquire a pen licence at school.
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Not once has the sculptor, based at Long Beach in NSW's Shoalhaven council district, been knocked back by a sculpture exhibition, including Sculpture Bermagui and Sculpture for Clyde.
Perhaps that is because he is a natural and inspiration often comes from his dreams.
Sculptor, sketcher, painter
Paul has been sculpting since he was 10 years old.
He was given a sheath knife with a bone handle and cast metal American Indian head on it.
His family lived near the Nepean River so he began carving the soft wood from the plentiful weeping willows.
"I started making the things young boys do like swords and daggers and bows and arrows," Mr Dimmer said.
He briefly put down his knife when he started a telecom technician apprenticeship.
However aged 19, he joined the Air Force and had six weeks free before his induction so back out came the knife.
"Throughout my Air Force career and back when I was at Telstra, carving was a pretty consuming hobby," he said.
During that time living in Canberra he also sketched and painted and his paintings, sculptures and drawings regularly appeared in Canberra galleries.
In 1998 "I gave up my 'real' job and started doing my artwork full-time and I have been doing it ever since".
Public appreciation of sculpture has grown
Some 13 years ago, Mr Dimmer taught himself welding because he wanted to do metal sculptures.
"With wood you're restricted to some extent by the grain of the timber and sometimes the grain won't let you do things," Mr Dimmer said.
In contrast, if he makes a mistake while working with steel it can be cut off and used elsewhere.
Mr Dimmer still loves timber but they tend to be larger curved pieces.
For years he has been carting around a collection of precious timbers - Huon pine and Australian red cedar.
In the last year or so he has started to incorporate them into the metal sculptures.
He primarily works in recycled stainless steel and corten with the odd bit of copper and brass.
In addition to dreams, inspiration comes from textures that interest him or an element of someone's work that he picks up and takes in another direction.
This article first appeared in Narooma News.
