Joe Mendla loves to draw in space.On the path to a career in Industrial Design he matriculated into art school. In art school he was taught to weld. This was a revelation to him because he discovered the material, steel, which could allow him to draw in space. He hadn't known that he wanted to draw in space until the moment that he glimpsed the possibility. From that point on, he saw himself as a sculptor.Throughout careers as an art school instructor and commission sculptor of figurative bronzes, the love of making steel drawings lived in the background of his life.More recently, the cross-fertilization of daily meditation and drawing with steel has yielded a series of centering sculptures. These are based on the Asian practice of painting a perfect circle on rice paper with a brush loaded with ink. The purpose of painting the circle, and later, of viewing it, is to achieve a state of calmness and one-pointedness. Joe's intent is the same but rather than using a brush loaded with ink he draws with steel arcs. Each of these resultant unique sculptures is entitled Zen Brushwork followed by the number of its place in the series.Joe lives, loves, meditates, dreams and welds sculpture in Grafton, Wisconsin.