Lisa Regan taught herself metalwork with welding tools borrowed from a mechanic friend with an auto body shop. In 1996, she founded Garden Deva Sculpture Company, a metalworking gallery and studio where she makes yard art, furniture, sculptures, and other metallic miscellany with a plasma torch, which uses compressed air and electricity to cut through metal with laser precision. Her work is often inspired by nature and language. The piece she’s most proud of is “Negative Tree,” a 16-foot, 2,000-pound collaboration with Israeli sculptor Menashe Kadishman.

Originally published in This Land: Winter 2016