Chuck Mettler, born and raised on the South Side in Des Moines, Iowa, graduated from Lincoln High School in that city in 1961. Mettler was interested in art from an early age and never stopped.  He received numerous high school awards for his art work, and in successive years his submissions won the Scholastic Art Magazine contest.  “I won so many ‘keys’ that I took the pins off the backs of them and made them into cuff  links.”

Then there was that award from Trafari Jewelers in New York City for unique jewelry design.

Before he graduated from high school, he went to the Chicago Art Institute to visit their art school program.  To gain admittance, one was required to submit 15 specific art projects to a jury of faculty members.  The categories included drawings in charcoal, pen-and-ink,  graphite, 2 and  dimensional design drawings, sculpture, palate knife paintings, pastels, oils, and then, you MIGHT be accepted.  In 1961, he was the only one who was accepted from Iowa.

The School of the Chicago Art Institute  is one of the  largest art schools in the country, attached to the internationally known Chicago Art Institute.   Fellow students included  Richard Hunt, sculptor, and Robert Indiana, painter and sculptor.

For the last 40 years since then,  he has taken lessons at Des Moines Arts Center.

He was a graphic designer for Look Magazine (A Cowles publication) for seven years, doing layout and design for magazine articles and promotional materials.  Working with the author of a feature story,  and  decide how to make   the reader want to read it.

After that went to work for several advertising agencies, graphic design companies and then drifted into KDIN,  the local PBS station, as art director.  He designed sets, station identification slides, and rolling credits for many documentary films,  one of which received an EMMY.  Those credits are still being used today.

Mettler’s artistic interests are vast. He took welding classes to learn how to bond steel, aluminum, brass, and bronze, and now creates pieces from the representative to abstract.   He has exhibited his pen and ink drawings, oils and pastel paintings, photographs and sculptures in steel, wood and stone, and formed company to market his sculptures through local galleries.    He created many fine art reproductions of such artists as Jackson Pollack, Andy Warhol, Franz Kline and Alexander Calder, using oil paints, and silk screens.  His latest sculptural work is heavily influenced by Claes Oldenberg.

In later years, he moved into large format graphics, used in trade show exhibits, vehicle wraps, and rear-lit advertising such as you’d see at airports.  He works with manufacturers and marketing companies to assist in their design concepts.

Like many artists, he works with whatever medium happens to be available, often things picked up in architectural salvage houses.  If the works is a sculpture, he creates it in his studio and  works with fabricators and foundry partners.

This all led to the co-creation of the South Des Moines Sculpture Park, a  1 ½ acre space on the south side which now contains 10 large scale sculptures, free and open to the public seven days a week.  The First Annual South Des Moines Art Festival took place in September, 2009.

His current interest focuses on custom designed chairs,  using recycled, discarded dining room chairs and transforming them into classic, custom made fine art, but with a whimsy, usable at your table or as stand alone pieces.  They make you smile.

This led to creating his whimsical Fine Art Furniture, in which he specializes today.  He takes classic art images by such artists as Leonardo Di Vinci (Mona Lisa), Vincent Van Gogh, and Edvard Munch, into a unique and functional fine art chair.

His work is in many private collections and featured in fine art galleries.