ABOVE: Tom Corbin is always looking for ways to keep his work fresh. "With art, you plateau for a while and then you want to jump to the next level." BELOW: Referencing the work of Bran- cusi, Corbin gave the figurative bases of the "Eden Lamps" a smooth gold finish

Tom Corbin: Breaking The Mold
Melding Business With Creativity, The Sculptor Cast His Career In Bronze

om Corbin says his crowning achievement "is that I can make a living as an artist. My overall goal was to have a more creative life. All through my childhood and high school years, art was always my first love, but I didn't think I could make a living at it."

Many years and two careers later, he is doing just that. "My business and creative sides have proven to be the best of both worlds," he continues. "A lot of artists who have a lot of talent are clueless coming out of school. They consider 'marketing' a bad word."

ABOVE: Originally designed for the owners of a home in the Colorado mountains, the "Horse Leg" bench fits a variety of settings, from a rustic cabin to a gentleman's study.

Not so for Corbin, who received his bachelor's degree in marketing and went to work selling corrugated boxes for a company upon graduation. Unfulfilled and uninspired, he took a leap of faith one summer day, quit his job, and embarked on a 54-day bike trip through Colorado and Canada "to take time out and see what I really wanted to do," he recalls. "They say it's good to find out when you're young what you don't want to do, so you can find out what you really want to do."

An excursion filled with ups and downs, literally, the trip provided Corbin quality time to read and relax. One book in particular, "What Color is Your Parachute?" changed his life.

"I followed all of the exercises in the book and found out that advertising was 'it' for me, so I got a job at an ad agency where I worked as an account executive."

At the ad agency, Corbin met a woman who was taking sculpting and bronze-casting lessons from a local artist. Working in the two-dimensional world of pencil drawings throughout college, Corbin was intrigued by three-dimensional art and the creative possibilities it offered. He began taking classes in the evenings, going home and "taking off my business suit, putting on overalls and sculpting all night," he recounts.

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