WHY I LOVE MY JOB:

Eddie Wright, Foam sculptor, Buford

Job: Foam sculptor, Buford

What I do: Eddie Wright, 48, turns ordinary blocks of Styrofoam into mermaids, Egyptian temples, skulls and superheroes. He is a sculptor whose medium is foam. His tools include hot knives, which are loops of metal heated to several hundred degrees to melt the foam as he slices through it, and sandpaper.

KARL RITZLER/Special
Eddie Wright demonstrates how a hot knife slices through the foam as he carves a face into a block. Behind him in his basement studio are some of his other sculptures, which can take several weeks to complete.
The results decorate theater sets, proms and parties; advertise products; and proclaim team loyalty. Wright hand-carves each piece in his basement studio or his shop, then paints and seals it with polyurethane that can keep it "forever, unless someone smashes it," he said. It's the same material Disney and Universal Studios use for their sets and theme parks. Wright's clients come from all over the country and include a haunted-house supplier in Michigan that asked him to make a 16-foot chain saw. He's also built three-dimensional Atlanta Hawks and Thrashers logos for company events and a mermaid destined for a casino. Wright works from pictures or models. "I can carve almost anything," he said. "It comes easy to me."

What got me interested in this: Wright said he was born with a creative spark. He first tried sculpting in clay about 20 years ago and discovered he had talent. He got started carving foam when he was approached by a supermarket to create a bathtub for an advertising promotion. He had been hand-lettering signs for the store. He chose foam because it was stronger than papier-mache and easier to work with than wood. He cut it with a power saw and sanded it to shape. Since then, he said, people recognized his talent, he honed his skills with other projects for the store and he began using the Internet to seek business for his company, Foamsculpture. Wright's whole career has been as an entrepreneur, first working for his father's tire company and later owning a home-improvement company for 15 years.

Best part of my job: "Being able to create," he said. "Taking a block and making something out of it." He also enjoys people's reaction when they find out his sculptures are made from foam. "It's a fun job to do."

KARL RITZLER/Special
Wright

Most challenging part: "Sanding." He said it is time-consuming, exacting work to get all the details right. And with sculpture, if you make a mistake, it's hard to put a missing piece back. "You have to keep turning the object around to see all the angles to get it right," he said.

What people don't know about my job: After learning that Wright's work is made from foam, people also are surprised "how much is involved to make this stuff," he said. He takes the block of foam, sometimes reinforces it with wood or pipe, carves, sands, re-carves and re-sands until it's done. A small piece can take a few minutes to a few hours. But a large sculpture with a lot of detail and shaded painting can take several weeks.

What keeps me going: "I love it," Wright said. "I made up my mind that this is my life, what I want to do."

Preparation needed for this job: "Be creative," Wright said. The native Atlantan took art classes and won an art contest in high school and took a sculpting class as an adult, but he has had little other formal art training. His business acumen comes from years of running his own company. Wright is full of ideas for things to carve, ways that businesses can advertise with foam sculptures and business-development plans. He is working with equipment suppliers to create foam-carving kits for beginners and advanced carvers.

- By Karl Ritzler, for ajcjobs. Got an interesting job that you love? E-mail your story to jobseditor@ajc.com.