FARMINGTON — The University of Maine at Farmington Emery Community Arts Center will kick off the academic year with an exhibit featuring the creative works of gifted sculptor and metal artist Jay Sawyer.

Sculpture Soup runs from Monday, Aug. 29, to Thursday, Nov. 3. It’s free and open to the public. There will be a reception from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 9.

From his education at Maine Maritime Academy to his welding and mobile repair business back in the 1990s, Sawyer has always been drawn to the practical function of steel, iron and other salvaged materials. As he continued to work with the “rusty gold” and castoff materials, he found his own gift for transforming a mangled piece of rusty steel into a work of art. As he re-envisions, heats, reshapes, hammers and welds the scrap metal, he gives the material an opportunity to tell a new story.

“These discarded and salvaged materials really speak to me,” said Sawyer. “I see their former practical use and the beauty of their form and balance. Then I let the materials speak for themselves and that leads to a new life for them as a unique art form.”

JBONE, Sawyer’s studio in Warren, is where he creates his one-of-a-kind sculptures and displays them in his outdoor gallery. “The Maestro,” a metal sculpture commissioned for a couple from Delaware, shows his deft hand with the twisted steel. The couple wanted a piece that celebrated music, and from a pile of salvaged metal from the American Can Co. plant in Portland, Sawyer created a work of art.

A Maine native, Sawyer’s first art show was in Cushing in 2007. His works are on display in the public art collection at the Portland International Jetport, the Owls Head Transportation Museum, the Boothbay Region Art Foundation, and Hyatt Place in Columbia, South Carolina, among others.