Grant has made a series of these small waves from stainless steel. “I got the welder through a trade, started toying with it and started to watch the metal melt and become liquid form,” he said.

‘If the river didn’t run through (Bend), I probably wouldn’t be here,” said artist Curtis Grant. “I’m not naturally a desert guy. I’m a displaced surfer. I’ve always been a water person, a saltwater person — Puget Sound and the coast — but water in general.”

Being a displaced waterman ties together much of Grant’s wood, metal and fused-glass works. His creations include surfboards, standup paddle boards, a longboard (the skateboarding kind) shaped like an alligator, fused-glass waves and, most recently, a series of small melted-steel waves with junipers planted beside them.

“I’ve messed with lots of different media, but it’s mostly the same visions: 3-dimensional-type wave sculpture in any type of format,” he said.

For those who want to get a close up look at Grant’s work, it’s going to be on display during tomorrow’s Last Saturday event at The Workhouse, one of many businesses in Bend’s Old Ironworks Arts District staying open late and offering music, art and more (see “If you go”). His son, Seattle musician TJ Grant of the band If BEARS were BEES will be there to supply the music.

Note, papa Grant’s pieces will be on display only today through Sunday, so don’t miss your chance to see them.

Grant grew up in Seattle, the son of a Boeing graphic designer and the younger brother of two siblings who landed a little closer to the drawing tree.

“I had visions, but I was in the shadows of my older siblings. I couldn’t illustrate. I can’t draw much at all. I can see it in my head, but to present it on paper is difficult,” he said. “I can represent it in three dimensions easier than I can in two dimensions. It’s just the nature of what I see.”

As an adult, Grant worked in construction and did finish carpentry, “and then I got frustrated with some of the business side of that,” he said. “I loved having my tools on and doing a great job, and then you get to the end of the road and you’re chasing money.”

He made a conscious choice to change career direction, making a list of things he wanted to do. He started a company making modular water features, but which quickly evolved into making custom water features.

“I knew I could walk into any house and something would come to me through the course of talking to a client and discovering who they were and looking at the architecture. There was always a story that would unfold,” he said.

Building custom water features served as “the background for where the visual stuff that I kind of always had (in me) came from,” he said. In the process, he and his sister, who worked with him, learned how to do fused glass.

Grant built water features from 1995 to 2005, completing an estimated 150 custom projects. In 2010, he moved to Bend with his new wife and stepson, intent on pursuing “the passion side of stuff,” he said. He toyed with the concept of making custom surfboards and standup paddle boards, building three surfboards that captured his vision in a three-month period.

“Very custom-type stuff and real high-end art show type stuff,” Grant said. “Boards that would be potentially functional yet basically artistic.”

He loaded them on a trailer and set out for California, visiting galleries and surf shops from Malibu to San Diego. The boards were “well received,” he said, but didn’t want to re-enter the world of trade shows and marketing.

“I could see it was going to take the joy out of it,” he said. “I’d been there. I knew that road.”

In the end, “I took a more practical approach and went into real estate here in Bend,” he said. “With the pride out of the way, I just tabled everything on the art side to what I call more hobby status, and not put my life on the line having to make sales.”

Even though he hasn’t made a concerted sales effort for his boards, he has managed to sell a couple of custom-made boards locally. More recently, he’s been working on the metal waves.

“The metal melting becomes liquid, and the liquid form becomes water and water is what I like working with. The nuances of what I get out of this, for me, are fascinating, on every piece,” he said.

Grant is planning on displaying the full range of his work on the displaced surfer theme during Last Saturday.

“It’s a crazy range of stuff that I’ve done compared to most people, I think,” he said. “I come out of such a construction background that I just don’t concern myself with ‘How do you build?’ You just get the concept and figure out a way.”

— Reporter: 541-383-0349, djasper@bendbulletin.com