Perched across the entryway to Steve Nowicki’s workshop is a skeleton of a prehistoric fish with an angry look on its face and a small fish in its belly.

The crude metal art piece titled “It Must Have Been Something I Ate” makes Nowicki smile.

It’s a daily reminder of how far he’s come as a metal artist in the short time since he took a welding class at Skagit Valley College and learned how to fabricate metal.

The bony fish was one of his first class projects, but that’s not the only reason the rusty thing still amuses him eight years later.

“I’ll get about 30 requests a year, ‘Will you make me one of those?’” Nowicki said. “Nope, I won’t do it.

“It’s just a personal thing.”

To say Nowicki’s work is more polished since that project would be a gross understatement.

Inside his Oak Harbor workshop are shiny steel art pieces of salmon and crab and other colorful items that he’s been making and selling since 2009.

After nine years as a computer programmer in the Navy, followed by 28 years running his own paint business,  Nowicki’s retirement was short-lived.

He chose to take a welding class so he could fix up his 1956 Chevy on his own, but cutting, shaping and attaching metal re-lit a creative spark inside of him.

The result is a business run by Nowicki and his wife Maryann titled Shock-N-Awe Metal Works.

He calls it a “hobby that’s out of control,” becoming a full-time business around 2010. He said there were times when he was spending 60 hours a week in his shop and he and his wife, a retired music teacher, were attending as many as 17 arts and craft shows a year selling his art around the Northwest.

Since their first grandchild arrived 18 months ago, the couple has scaled back considerably.

“Our priorities have changed,” Nowicki said.

Nowicki recently joined Garry Oak Gallery in downtown Oak Harbor. Being labeled an “artist” is a concept he wasn’t comfortable with until he recently started branching out and working with steel, copper, brass and aluminum rivets. His creations now include lamps and clocks and wall art that merge brass and wood, among other items.

“When I sold my first brass piece, I thought, ‘I’m an artist,’” Nowicki said, noting this happened only a month ago.

“I am evolving into a lot of different areas. Where the creativity came from, I have no idea.”

He credits other Western Washington metal artists who’ve both inspired him and shared tips. One whose work he is particular fond of is steel sculptor Gunter Remintz from Port Townsend.

“Everyone has a talent,” Nowicki said. “You’ve just got to find it.”

Nowicki’s artistic side has just been in a holding pattern, his wife said.

After the Navy, Nowicki made horseshoe nail jewelry and sold it at shows throughout the Northwest for three years in the 1970s. Steve and Maryann were newly married.

“I think it’s so interesting that Steve has reinvented himself,” Maryann said. “He’s so enthusiastic about what he does.

“I keep telling him that it keeps him young.”

Steve Nowicki’s art can be seen at Garry Oak Gallery in Oak Harbor and online at www.shocknawemetalworks.com. He’ll also be attending the Anacortes Arts Festival Aug. 5-7.