Born in Petersburg, VA and raised in Hopewell, VA, the accidental artist, Kirk Thore is now living a life that he never even thought about growing up or throughout his working career. Starting off in construction out of high school and moving through apprenticeship programs he landed a job at Allied Signal, now Honeywell, in 1980. Taking apart and putting cars back together was a favorite hobby of
his and still is now. While at work on his downtime between jobs he would look around the shop for scrap metal or old discarded parts and pieces and try and make things out of them. This started as just a way to pass the time before the next job. He made a piece here and there and started to display them in his yard or in the garage. Friends soon started to give him ideas of things they wanted and he would make his version of the idea from whatever he could find. Then after seeing how his pieces looked outside of his home and the attention they were starting to get, he thought maybe it was something more there. After retiring from Honeywell, his creativity just increased and with more time on his hands, he made even more of his industrial creations. He’s made everything from crabs out of horseshoes, to fish out of old ice tongs and even a chicken out of old farm tools and re-bar just to name a few. Every day he comes up with new designs and ideas for something different and puts them in to life. It’s something he never thought he would be doing but now couldn't imagine it any other way.
