Meet Cole McLaughlin | Metal Artist & Metal Business Owner

We had the good fortune of connecting with Cole McLaughlin and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Cole, how did you come up with the idea for your business?
Growing up working at our family business that is a precision sheet metal and stamping company, I learned many metal working techniques at an early age. Most of these techniques were the traditional metal working skills like milling & cnc machines, welding, and finish work. Later on, I found myself bored of these daily duties, mainly the repetition of production manufacturing. I wanted to do something different and use my creative skills, as I was always creating things with metal and mechanically inclined with an eye for detail. I started to make custom metal picture frames for artists, then was asked to make tables, signs, custom metal retail fixtures for people’s homes and businesses. That led to making trade show booth design, office build-outs with architecture firms, and custom furniture. Before I knew it, I was in business and Revello Metal Craft was born. My passion of creating my own metal art, furnishings, sculptures and public art is something that I now love to do. I chose the name Revello Metal, because “Revello” is the last name of my great grandpa Charlie who came to America by himself on a boat from Italy at age 11 to pursue the American Dream. I connected with that name and have always envisioned that dream for my metal company as well.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?

After many years of making custom metal work such as picture frames, furnishings, and art, for others, I decided it was time for me to take my metal working experience and expand it to the art world. At first I didn’t know where to start, but I slowly discovered that my passion for snowboarding would be the inspiration for my first art collection titled “Metal Snow”. That began with me making a few custom metal snowflake art pieces for a client in Mammoth Lakes Ca, With that, I saw the light, no one was really making high-end 3-dimentsional snowflake art. So I got excited and realized that I need to make art around something I loved. Since each snowflake is unique, I came up with many designs I wanted to create. It took me 2 years and lots of hard work to begin making this giant snowflake art sculpture collection. During that process, I even severed a finger that had to be surgically re-attached and sewed back on during the making of all that metal art (no joke!). But all that effort paid off and I created 50 individual 3-dimensional snowflake art sculptures ranging in size from 2 foot to 6 foot in diameter.

The process of making the art was easy for the most part as I had skills and experience to work with and create from all kinds of metal. The difficult part was learning new techniques and finishes along the way, that was a major challenge. But with trial and error, I continued learning and overcame those challenges. The other challenge was coming up with the concepts and names for all my art pieces. I am very fortunate that my wife is a creative writer and screenwriter, she helped me tremendously by coming up with the story and names for this collection. She also pushed me to complete my collection and set up my first art exhibit, In 2012 I hosted my first art exhibit in Los Angles in Echo Park at a place called Echoes Under Sunset. My collection was titled “Snowpocalypse” this was my first time unveiling of my 50 unique metal snowflake art sculptures. It was a hit! About 250 people attended. With a dj, drinks, and a dessert bar, I sold a few art pieces that night!

This was the moment I realized I can do this, I can pursue my passion as a Metal Artist. I was excited and my creative juices were on level 10, I was so incredibly grateful for the success of the first show, and of course wanted to do more! That show opened up some doors, got my name and metal artwork out there, so I was invited by The Westin in Mammoth Lakes to exhibit the same collection during their opening ski/snowboard season. From there, I was invited to exhibit in Mammoth Lakes three more times, as well as in other cities and events including Newport Beach, Las Vegas, and Palm Springs. That collection sold out, with only a handful of pieces left. Since then, I’ve had my metal art sold in a few art galleries, stores, and created metal art for various people including making two giant Les Paul replica guitars for a very well-known Rockstar guitarist’s property gate in L.A. I continue to make metal art and furnishings for various people, though I’m also transitioning into creating small and large scale public art sculptures. That is my next big endeavor. I love that L.A. has a lot of cool public art and my goal is to get a few of mine up in the city as well.

I encourage anyone who has a passion to create something, to just do it. Even if it’s on a small scale, just find a way, one step at a time, make it happen. Even if one person sees or notices, that’s rewarding.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
As an art guy, I would start a tour around Los Angeles going to LACMA, The Broad, Gabba gallery and a trip the the Arts District in downtown L.A., over to Art Share and other galleries in the area. Then one of my favorite artists store The SHAG store in West Hollywood, then up to do a tour at The Stahl House, go check out Mr Brainwash Museum in Beverly Hills, also go check out Venice Beach and Santa Monica pier, also see a comedy show at The Largo on Willshire, bowling at Bowlero in Mar Vista. There are too many good food places in LA so I like to stop and eat wherever we stumble on, I like small places like Toast, Clementines, Girl Walks Into A Bar, Marmalade Cafe for breakfast or lunch, For dinner Terra at Eataly, Boa Steakhouse, Laurel Hardware, The Nice Guy. or some great Persian food at Shaherzad or Farsi cafe.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I definitely have had a lot of support in my career beginning with my parents, Garry and Anne, who were very supportive and open for me to pursue my metal art and get that going aside from daily duties of helping them run the family sheet metal manufacturing business called AZ Manufacturing. I also get a lot of support and encouragement from my wife, Lila, who encourages me, sends me a lot of inspiration for new art pieces and helps to collaborate with me on creating the backstory for my art. I also was somewhat mentored / learned old school blacksmithing metal technique like forging and pounding metal on an anvil from a friend Giovani, who is 3rd generation blacksmith from Croatia. Also, big shout-out for the support and encouragement of the friends and first customers who were in the pro motocross and surf-skate-snowboard (a.k.a. action sports industry). That industry really embraced my metal art from the get-go and would commission me to do small and large scale custom metal projects for themselves and their companies.

Website: revellometal.com

Instagram: @revellometal

Linkedin: Cole Mclaughlin

Facebook: Revello Metal Craft

Image Credits
credit : myself (Cole McLaughlin)