Adam Hayes - Biography

adam hayes sculptor

A brief history of me – as an artist and a maker, anyway!

  • As a child I started out making candles – selling them in my mother’s little craft shop. My Christmas tree candles did pretty well!
  • After college I moved to Spain and set up a candle making workshop. Soon I wanted to expand into candelabra and candle holders, so I taught myself to weld steel.
  • After discovering that a distant relative was one of the finest Artist Blacksmiths in the UK (Theo Grünwald). I spent some time in Wales and he very kindly started my training as a blacksmith.
  • Set up an small smithy making decorative pieces and furniture. Gradually grew – bigger workshops, more machinery, employees, etc. I ended up doing architectural commissions, all hand forged and designed by me.
  • When I started to have problems with my back I had to change course. So I studied sculpture for 3 years at the Granada school of Art. I was still working in steel but I incorporated laser cutting and added other materials like stone.
  • After a huge back operation another change in course and scale was needed! No more big hammers….. 🙁
  • So I began my training as a jeweller and silversmith with the amazing Rachel Mackie. Rachel showed me the fundamentals of working with silver – soldering, stone setting, etc. She also encouraged me too use my experience as a blacksmith when producing texture and form.

Where I am now

I live over my small workshop in Nigüelas – a beautiful village in the Lecrin valley, Granada.

I have a small forge and I make small pieces in forged iron when I can. However most of my time is spent on my jewellery.

I tend to design as I work – the advantage of an extensive career is that I have a big mental library of ideas to draw on. I started with art nouveau and finished with brutalism. This gives me a pretty broad palette of shapes and forms!