Christina Demetro

Hello and thank you for taking an interest. I’m a professional artist who breathes in deep inspiration from the ebb and flow of nature, connections with loved ones, and past challenges to inform my artwork. Many see food as medicine and wilderness as medicine… and I see art as medicine as well. I seek the therapeutic value of it, both for myself and others. That is why—in over three decades of working with bronze and other art forms like wood—I focus mainly on creating fundraising artwork that either adds a twist of meaningful discovery or draws in the viewer interactively. Often I involve the community.

Lately, among other explorations, I have been adding instruments like hang drums and chimes into my artwork as an extra therapeutic, interactive element. Examples of this can be seen in the large art piece titled Song of Hope, where an Alaskan river turns into a large xylophone of chimes. Or The Peace Crane sculpture, where larger-than-normal chimes are incorporated in the sandhill crane’s outstretched wings. It is my hope this will become one of my artistic signatures for larger pieces.

I believe everyone is an artist in some way. My own art exploration began with sculpting realistic, figurative bronzes from 1992 onwards as an apprentice, assistant and, later, co-sculptor with my father, master sculptor Jim Demetro. For my own work, I delved into abstract realism. The goal? Adding something surprising in each of my realistic sculptures, like a semi-hidden message or symbol. After a decade of assistant sculpting, I created my first abstract bronze for a public setting in 2002. I collaborate on bronze sculptures, and have also branched out into woodworking, paintings, luminaries, steel, stainless steel, porcelain enamel-covered-steel art, and bronze pieces of my own. I delight in the fact that many of these metals and natural materials can incorporate interactive elements or instruments.

Whenever I can, I include the public in the co-creation of outdoor sculptures as a type of community-building event. Examples of this include:
1. I included over a thousand participants in 40 classrooms and two public workshops in the towns of Kenai, Soldotna and Sterling, Alaska—where they not only helped co-sculpt but also made their own sculptures and xylophone song compositions.
2. I worked with hospital staff on a healing garden artwork project.
3. In 2017, I involved three schools of elementary and middle school students to help sculpt the six-foot long, bronze Wildheart the Giving Salmon for Homer, AK.
4. The year before that, I co-led, in Anchorage, 94 Boys and Girls Club kids and Wonder Park first graders to help co-sculpt the five-foot high, bronze Whale Song sculpture.

These children—as they ride on the back of the salmon, or swing from the whale’s tail, or play the xylophones in the Peace Crane or Song of Hope sculptures—have the deeper pride of part ownership in these pieces. The largest group I was involved with, when teamed up with my father, had over 1,300 local participants.

Professionally, the art I create also gives back; that is, it supports local fundraisers, or a portion of the profit goes to charity. When this new decade launched with the year 2020 and a pandemic, I felt it was a symbolic year of trying to have the 20/20 eyesight for honing a higher perspective of interconnectedness, as well as the idealistic vision of creating fundraising art in a challenging profession.

At this time, I mainly raise funds for UNICEF. Your artwork purchases help support good causes, as well as hopefully bring happiness to you and yours.