Meet the artists
Bob Welton is a longtime metal fabricator and artist. He worked on the MSU Cyclotron for over 40 years, and now focuses primarily on art.
Chance Liscomb is a longtime artist and teacher. He is originally from Virginia and recently moved to Lansing.
Mike Bass's family owns a 130 year old scrap-processing and recycling company in Lansing, Michigan called Friedland Industries (where most of the scrap metal in the logos comes from).
How Iron Bento Began
Every year, Friedland Industries hosts a scrap metal art competition called Old Town ScrapFest, and Bob has participated since its inception.
Bob and Mike found a unique opportunity to team up, and help companies give their logos a new look.
It started with sending Sumo and AppSumo a gift after attending their first SumoCon in Austin, TX, and has developed into filling a need for handmade functional artwork that companies can enjoy in our ever-growing digital world.
It first began with logos, and is now stemming into selling some of the standalone pieces created by Bob, Chance, and hopefully soon, some of the other artists who participate in ScrapFest.
Why Iron Bento?
Hey, Mike here.
For those who know me, this may seem obvious, but for those who don’t know me yet, I have a deep history with Japan, and it is very special to me. I lived there for a long time — in Lansing’s sister city, Otsu — and it became a second home to me. Much of my heart is still there.
The bento box is significant in Japanese culture. Each section stands alone, and yet all of them work together to provide a unique moment of culinary beauty.
We want to bring the world metal artwork in the same way; with an iron bento of artists, each standing alone as masters of their crafts, yet working together to provide the world with unique moments of artistic beauty.
We are very excited, and can’t wait to further help put #LoveLansing on the map as THE place to find metal artwork.